Category: Mayhem

It has become common practice for attackers to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to link tools together so that they can be run in parallel when conducting an attack.

Attackers use AI and ML to take the results from one tool and then allow the other tools to “learn” about the finding and use it against other systems. As an example, if a one tool finds a password, that tool can feed the information to another tool or bot that may conduct the exploitation of one or many systems using the discovered password.

AI and ML allows for an attacker to program a toolset or bot to act like a “real” attacker. As an example, the tool or bot may launch a phishing attack against an organization and then take the results of the phishing tool and conduct other types of attacks just as a human would.

Attackers are building toolsets and bots that use AI and ML techniques to evade detection and blocking the methods already in place within most organizations. Many of these tools (typically open source) can be easily obtained from the Internet.  This gives anyone the ability to run the tools against target organizations.

In an article in Wired President Obama expressed his concerns about AI-enabled bots attacking nuclear weapon silos and causing a launch. This intimates that the threat of AI and ML enhanced attacks are a major concern even at the highest level of government.

Advice and Recommendations

• Use defense in depth mechanisms to defend against automated/AI-based attacks. As an example, consider using more than one anti-virus product to protect your systems, one on desktops, one on servers, and one at the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).  This improves your chances of detecting the attack.
• Utilize Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) to evaluate log data from systems and protection mechanisms. As an example, capture data from firewalls, Intrusion Detection/Prevention (IDS/IPS), and from workstations and servers.  Look for anomalous behavior such as systems trying to connect to other systems that normally would not have anything to do with each other.
• Ensure that all systems require users to use strong passwords comprised of alpha, numeric, and special characters. Put polices in place that require the users of these systems, including administrators, to change their passwords at least every 90 days.
• Train your employees on a regular basis on what to do when they notice anomalous events on their computers (mouse pointer moving with no user interaction, etc.).
• Shut down unnecessary services on all systems. As an example, if you have a file server running a web server but that web server is never used, shut it down to reduce the attack surface of the host.  Tools and bots using AI/ML will hunt for systems with exploitable services first so that they can be used as pivot points to attack other systems on the network.
• Stay abreast of new threats to ensure that the protection mechanisms you have in place still provide the level of security that you are expecting.
• Conduct ongoing vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to discover weaknesses in your computing infrastructure that may be exploited by a bot or other tool that seeks out and exploits vulnerabilities.

The phenomenon of so-called snuff movies (films that allegedly document real acts of murder, specifically designed to entertain and sexually arouse the spectator) represents a fascinating socio-cultural paradox. At once unproven, yet accepted by many, as emblematic of the very worst extremes of pornography and horror, moral detractors have argued that the mere idea of snuff constitutes the logical (and terminal) extension of generic forms that are dependent primarily upon the excitement, stimulation and, ultimately, corruption of the senses. Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media brings together scholars from film and media studies to assess the longevity of one of screen medias most enduring cultural myths. Thorough, provocative, and well argued, the contributions to this volume address areas ranging from exploitation movies, the video industry, trends in contemporary horror cinema, pornography and Web 2.0.

Download: http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=D8C26F13DB06BB9419DA55325B396BEB

You’re all set — your bags were packed long ago, there’s a dozen solid gold coins stashed inside your belt and a pistol strapped round your waist.

There’s no need to say goodbye to the wife and children as they’re already waiting for you 6,000 miles away in New Zealand, having slipped off quietly at the first whiff of global catastrophe.

Now, they’re making themselves comfortable in that fortress home you’ve spent years preparing. They’ve got store-loads of food and enough guns and ammunition to start World War III – which might, anyway, have begun by the time you arrive.

The high-powered motorbike you’ve never used is waiting outside to whisk you to the private airport where your plane sits waiting.

A helicopter-ride at the other end, pull up the drawbridge — yes, you have one — and you’re ready to wait, for years if necessary, for civilisation to return.

Never mind the warnings about stocking up on vegetables after awful weather has ravaged the Mediterranean farming belt. Some of America’s richest people are spending billions quietly preparing for a global Apocalypse.

The world of Doomsday survivalists or ‘Preppers’ — those preparing themselves for total social collapse — is usually associated with wild-eyed eco-beardies hiding in the woods.

But the existence of a very different group of Preppers was laid bare by a political row in New Zealand this week. 

Attracted by a remote First World country that has the potential to be self-sufficient and is on no one’s list of nuclear targets, the super-rich kings of Silicon Valley and Wall Street are buying up vast tracts of its land — in anticipation of the day when they may need to live there.

The controversy has revealed the extraordinary precautions being taken by the mega- rich to ensure that WTSHTF — a crude survivalist acronym for ‘when the **** hits the fan’ — they and their loved ones will be safe and comfortable.

What the catastrophe will precisely be remains unclear, but possibilities include a devastating asteroid impact, giant earthquake, nuclear war, civil war, pandemic, zombie invasion and the Second Coming.

Tellingly, the geeks of Silicon Valley appear to be most worried that it will be a struggle between rich and poor in a world economy turned upside down by new technology — with them as the main targets.

The row in New Zealand involves scores of mega-rich Americans but has specifically centred on Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of the internet payment system PayPal and an early investor in Facebook.

Thiel, a libertarian supporter of Donald Trump, paid $10million for a 477-acre lakeside estate in the country’s beautiful but isolated Southern Alps, which provided much of the staggering landscape in the Lord Of the Rings and Hobbit films.

Amid a public outcry over the invasion of U.S. internet and finance billionaires, the New Zealand government has released papers detailing the ‘exceptional circumstances’ under which the American tycoon was quietly given a New Zealand passport.

Peter Thiel (pictured, centre) is a big supporter of Donald Trump but he has an insurance plan if it all goes pear-shaped, having bought a 477-acre estate in New Zealand

It is difficult to understand how this complied with the rules, including one that insists foreigners must live there for three years beforehand.

Mr Thiel has gushed about his ‘great pride’ in his new citizenship and how he has ‘found no other country that aligns more with my view of the future’.

Perhaps what he really meant was exposed, after one of his Silicon Valley chums, the venture capitalist Sam Altman, revealed that, at the first sign of global disaster, he and Thiel would fly to New Zealand.

Other uber-rich Americans who have recently bought homes there include the billionaire hedge-fund pioneer Julian Robertson and the Hollywood film director James Cameron.

Local estate agents say their U.S. clients rarely intend to live in New Zealand, but cite reasons for their purchases such as the toxic presidential election and the spate of mass shootings in America.

In the first ten months of last year, foreigners — mainly Australians and Americans — bought nearly 1,400 square miles of land there, more than four times what they bought in the same period the previous year.

When they’re not buying up land abroad (Chile is also popular as it has low taxes, a good climate and good air links), rich survivalists like to swap tips on private Facebook groups or at regular dinners.

Popular subjects range from buying internet currencies such as Bitcoin, as protection against a central banking meltdown, to which foreign countries are most likely to hand them a passport and so the chance to relocate there in a crisis.

Some have planned for every eventuality. Steve Huffman, the 33-year-old co-founder of the internet discussion forum Reddit, which is valued at $600 million, is one of several Silicon Valley barons who has had laser surgery to correct poor eyesight.

If society collapses, he reasons perversely, getting hold of new spectacles might be a challenge. Ammunition could run out, too.

Steve Huffman (left), co-founder of Reddit, has had laser surgery because he does not want to rely on post-apocalyptic opticians, while Oracle founder Larry Ellison (right) is readying an escape hatch in Hawaii

Steve Huffman (left), co-founder of Reddit, has had laser surgery because he does not want to rely on post-apocalyptic opticians, while Oracle founder Larry Ellison (right) is readying an escape hatch in Hawaii

Marvin Liao, a former senior executive at web giant Yahoo, has taken classes in archery and has amassed a small arsenal of other non-firearm weapons to protect his wife and daughter.

Survivalists have their own set of acronyms, including WROL (Without Rule Of Law) and LIA (Little Ice Age). (Some of them worry that the latter has just started).

They also have secret buzzphrases. ‘Saying you’re “buying a house in New Zealand” is kind of a wink, wink — say no more,’ Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist told the New Yorker magazine.

‘Once you’ve done the Masonic handshake, they’ll be, like: “Oh, you know, I have a broker who sells old ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] silos, and they’re nuclear-hardened, and they kind of look like they would be interesting to live in.” ’

These brothers in paranoia don’t necessarily agree on how to survive the approaching cataclysm. Antonio Garcia Martinez, a former Facebook product manager, bought five wooded acres on an island off America’s north Pacific coast.

For this refuge, he brought in solar panels, power generators and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

He chose the spot because it’s far from cities — but not completely remote, as ‘one guy alone’ couldn’t hope to stand up to a ‘roving mob’. One would need to set up a ‘local militia’ with others, he says. And when you have your hundred or so acres of land, what do you put there?

Post-apocalypse design for the money-no-object brigade tends to involve creating a home with a huge bomb-proof basement. The home must be self-contained, not only ‘off the grid’ (with its own power and water supplies), but with tanks for raising tilapia — a hardy, fast-growing fish — to eat, and facilities in which to grow vegetables hydroponically without soil.

Naturally, property developers are eagerly capitalising on such concerns. The Survival Condo Project, a former underground nuclear missile silo in Kansas, has been converted into a 15- storey luxury apartment complex with a pool, gym, classroom and a miniature hospital.

It also has ground-level security cameras, electric fences, an on-site armoury, a sniper post and even a prison cell in which to put unwanted visitors. Instead of windows, giant LED screens show live pictures of the prairie above.

Its creators, who’ve sold all 14 of the $3m homes and are developing a string of new sites, say it can sustain 70 people indefinitely. That is, as long as they can put up with living in what a visitor compared to a well-furnished submarine — silent and rather oppressive.

Project boss Larry Hall says he gets more phone inquiries every time North Korea tests a bomb.

His team promise to send a Pit-Bull VX armoured truck to collect a resident from within a 400-mile radius of the silo.

Others prefer to put their own plans in place. Reddit founder Huffman says he realised a motorbike would be a necessity after watching the disaster film Deep Impact, in which people try to flee a tsunami caused by a comet-strike, clogging the streets so cars are brought to a standstill.

All this panic among the super-rich begs an obvious question: what do they know that the rest of us don’t?

Certainly, preparing for the Apocalypse has been a multi-billion dollar business for many years.

Polls have shown around 22 per cent of Americans believe the world will ‘end’ in their lifetime. Many right-wingers were convinced that Barack Obama would start a civil war by trying to seize citizens’ guns.

Now, there’s the unpredictable Donald Trump to disturb their dreams. More than 13,000 Americans registered to buy a home in New Zealand — 17 times the usual rate — in the week after he was elected president.

There are TV shows about so-called preppers, a survivalist radio network and disaster readiness conventions. There are estate agents dedicated to the task, scouting out easily defendable properties, and even ‘Doomsday dating’ sites such as Survivalist Singles (motto: ‘You don’t have to face the future alone’).

But why are the country’s most privileged people, protected by immense wealth, quite so in fear?

For it is believed that at least 50 per cent of Silicon Valley billionaires have taken out so-called ‘apocalypse insurance’ by finding a refuge at home or abroad. Reluctant to admit the truth, they often describe it as a holiday home, so it’s difficult to know whether or not Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg bought a 750-acre estate in Hawaii ‘just in case’.

Similarly, his fellow tech billionaire Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, who has not only bought 98 per cent of Hawaii’s sixth largest island, Lanai, but — handily — its own airline.

Of course there is the possibility that these fretting tech wizards’ prescience is justified. For many have made their fortunes out of predicting mankind’s dependence on digital gadgets and so we should respect their Doomsday hunches. Survivalists say the first signs of crisis often appear on internet chat forums, as they reportedly did before the 2008 financial crash.

Yishan Wong, another Silicon Valley multi-millionaire who has had eye surgery in readiness for a world without opticians, argues that techie types see risk in a clear-headed way. An apocalypse may be a remote possibility but, if you have money to burn, it’s ‘logical’ to take out insurance, he says.

A less flattering theory is that they’re simply bored nerds who long for adventure and fantasise about a future in which they’ll be a woman-magnet cross between apocalyptic hero Mad Max and environmentally friendly chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

 

Thousands protest against Romanian government’s emergency decree

A New York architect told me he was hired by a senior partner at the bank Goldman Sachs to build a post-Apocalypse house far outside the city. His client wanted it to be a rallying point for local people, gathering — of course — to fall into line under his leadership.

Certainly, Reddit founder Mr Huffman claims he’s ‘a pretty good leader’ who ‘will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave’ if civilisation falls to pieces.

For these great Silicon Valley egalitarians fear that if society collapses, vengeful mobs will look for the super-rich. And, in particular, for the tech wizards whose robots and artificial intelligence systems are taking humans’ jobs.

A critic might ask why, if they’re so alarmed by a battle between rich and poor, they don’t stop wasting their billions on stockpiling armouries and islands and spend it helping the less fortunate?

But then what sort of red-blooded tech king wants to sign a cheque to charity when they could splash out on helicopters, Ducati motorbikes and an assault rifle for every family member?

It’s easy to laugh at the obscenely rich finding grotesque new ways to waste their money. But it’s undeniably disconcerting when it’s the lords of our digital age.

After all, everyone in Silicon Valley claims they want to save the world, not run away from it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190322/Tech-billionaires-building-boltholes-New-Zealand.html

The 2002 edition of Zen at War was followed by Zen War Stories, which further explores the intimate relationship between Japanese institutional Buddhism and militarism during World War II.

A hacker is selling hundreds of thousands of accounts that were allegedly used by police and federal agents on a hacked law enforcement forum. The database being sold in the dark web contains over 715,000 user accounts. The breached site, PoliceOne, is a news site and community reportedly used by verified police officers and investigators to discuss specialist topics.

Using this account information, “criminals may be able to access ‘private messages and posts,’ the hacker who goes by the handle Berkut” told Motherboard.

PoliceOne.com is the #1 resource for up-to-the-minute law enforcement information online. More than 500,000 police professionals nationwide are registered PoliceOne members and trust us to provide them with the most timely, accurate and useful information available anywhere.

Berkut’s listing in the dark web marketplace claims that the forum was hacked in 2015 when this police data was stolen. “Emails from NSA, DHS, FBI and other law enforcement agencies as well as other US government agencies” is included in this database which is currently going for $400. The data includes usernames, email addresses, dates of birth, other forum data, and passwords stored in MD5, an encryption algorithm that is now considered relatively easier to crack.

The hacker responsible for the breach claimed that he breached the site using an exploit for vBulletin, a software widely known for its easily exploitable vulnerabilities, that has been leveraged in a number of forum breaches.

PoliceOne has confirmed the breach and is currently investigating the claim of stolen data. The site released the following statement:

We have confirmed the credibility of a purported breach of the PoliceOne forums in which hackers were potentially able to obtain usernames, emails and hashed passwords for a portion of our members. While we have not yet verified the claim, we are taking immediate steps to secure user accounts and our forums, which are currently offline while we investigate and gather more information.

While we store only limited user data and no payment information, we take any breach of data extremely seriously and are working aggressively to resolve the matter. We will be notifying potentially-affected users as a matter of priority and requiring them to change their passwords.

source: http://wccftech.com/hacker-selling-police-accounts-dark-web/

Last week, we brought you the trailer (below) for Flying Lotus’s directorial debut, Kuso, which I noted was pretty much the most batshit thing I’ve seen in my life! To recap:

Kuso goes deep and vividly into the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that hits L.A. But that’s just where the fever dream movie from Steve Ellison and Brainfeeder Films starts. The lift-off is the real ride. Along with the Funkadelic leader [George Clinton], Kuso also stars comedian Hannibal Buress plus Iesha Coston, Zack Fox, The Buttress, and Tim Heidecker.

Apparently, Kuso isn’t just batshit. According to Variety, crowds abandoned the film in droves not long after it launched its midnight screening at Sundance this morning, it may just be the most disgusting movie ever made. The industry trade gives a description of some the film’s most shocking moments, but be warned: If you decide to read, you will be bombarded with seriously grotesque imagery.

Per Variety:

“I’ll start with the footage of an erect penis being stabbed. As with most footage of an erect penis being violently gored by a long steel rod, it’s certainly unexpected. A large chunk of the audience left my screening early, when a boil-covered woman choked a man with a strap until he covered half her face with semen that looked like a muted version of Nickelodeon slime. But the walk-outs continued in a consistent stream up to the final scene. Some gross-out films are one-note, but ‘Kuso’ finds new ways to test viewers’ fortitude. Some folks stuck around after a woman chewed on concrete until her teeth disintegrated, but still peaced out when an alien creature force-yanked a fetus from another woman’s womb (accompanied by a ‘Mortal Kombat’ sound clip: ‘Get over here!’), then smoked the tiny corpse.”

Please excuse me as I try to wash these mental pictures out of my head!

Of course, this kind of terrible review could actually be seen as a good thing for Horror Freaks, who appreciate filmmakers who push envelopes to dangerous extremes. It will clearly be a mainstream flop, but I’m willing to bet Kuso will go on to amass some kind of cult following. Heck, I’ll certainly give it a view (in spite of my better judgment, perhaps!).

http://horrorfreaknews.com/kuso-deemed-grossest-movie-ever-amid-mass-walk-outs-sundance/14681

How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power

Blame it on the smartphone, the technology that is bringing internetlike tracking and surveillance into brick-and-mortar stores.

In this revealing account, Turow (Communication/Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth, 2012, etc.) describes how the same online personalization made possible on your computer by cookies has reared its head in the aisles and checkouts of supermarkets and department stores, where 90 percent of all retail purchases still occur. “Tying into the always-on smartphone carried by about 70 percent of Americans,” writes the author, “merchants, brand manufacturers, and their agents are exploiting cellular signals, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, sound waves, light waves, and more to track customers and send them product messages before, during, and after their store visits.” This is the beginning of a “great transformation” in retailing: by 2028, half of all Americans are expected to have body implants that can communicate with retailers as they walk around stores, which will allow merchants to gather increasingly specific data on shoppers and redefine seller-customer relationships. In return for capturing data—generally without shoppers’ awareness—merchants offer loyalty programs, discount coupons, and other benefits. In effect, they are training consumers to “give up personal data willingly,” accept discriminations made between high- and low-value shoppers (with some getting better prices than others), and relinquish “the historical ideal of egalitarian treatment in the American marketplace.” Turow writes in a matter-of-fact manner that barely disguises his outrage at the invasiveness of the under-the-radar surveillance at Target, Wal-Mart, and elsewhere, which, he says, demands regulation and consumer education. While sometimes repetitious, his book offers invaluable insights about in-store data-gathering, including frank observations from unnamed industry sources. Most retailers, he writes, hope future generations will simply accept surveillance and tracking as part of the American shopping experience.

Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike.