Tag Archive for: kevin

McDermott: Governor’s take on security breach shows who’s the real ‘enemy of the people’ | Kevin McDermott

/in


This was, in fact, a “freely available” website, with no “permission” needed to access it.

• “This individual [was] acting against a state agency to compromise teachers’ personal information in an attempt to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.”

Renaud made clear in his story that he stumbled upon the Social Security numbers while looking for a way to aggregate public teacher certification data. There was no ill intent.

Which brings us to a significant and inexcusable omission: Parson knew that the warning from Renaud was the only reason the administration even learned it was putting teachers at risk. Yet Parson made no mention of that in his press conference.

Parson vowed that “we will not let this crime against Missouri teachers go unpunished.” Parson knows perfectly well there wasn’t any “crime” here.

Only Parson knows why he decided to misrepresent this episode to the public. But it’s worth noting that a PAC that supports him was using those misrepresentations in a fundraising appeal last week.

To review: More than 100,000 teachers were at risk from a security flaw in a state website. A journalist discovered that risk, alerted the state, and even gave the state time to fix the problem before publishing the story. Now Parson is focused not on figuring out who screwed this up, but on persecuting the journalist who revealed the screwup.

Source…

McDermott: Governor’s take on security breach show who’s the real ‘enemy of the people’ | Kevin McDermott

/in


This was, in fact, a “freely available” website, with no “permission” needed to access it.

• “This individual [was] acting against a state agency to compromise teachers’ personal information in an attempt to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.”

Renaud made clear in his story that he stumbled upon the Social Security numbers while looking for a way to aggregate public teacher certification data. There was no ill intent.

Which brings us to a significant and inexcusable omission: Parson knew that the warning from Renaud was the only reason the administration even learned it was putting teachers at risk. Yet Parson made no mention of that in his press conference.

Parson vowed that “we will not let this crime against Missouri teachers go unpunished.” Parson knows perfectly well there wasn’t any “crime” here.

Only Parson knows why he decided to misrepresent this episode to the public. But it’s worth noting that a PAC that supports him was using those misrepresentations in a fundraising appeal last week.

To review: More than 100,000 teachers were at risk from a security flaw in a state website. A journalist discovered that risk, alerted the state, and even gave the state time to fix the problem before publishing the story. Now Parson is focused not on figuring out who screwed this up, but on persecuting the journalist who revealed the screwup.

Source…

Hackers Taunt FireEye’s Kevin Mandia At Home With Postcard: Report

/in


Hackers attempted to troll FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia with a postcard that called into question the company’s ability to attribute cyberattacks to the Russian government, Reuters reported.

The FBI is investigating a mysterious postcard sent to Mandia’s home days after FireEye found initial evidence of a suspected Russian hacking operation on U.S. government agencies and private businesses, according to Reuters. Federal officials said Jan. 5 that a Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group is likely behind colossal hacking campaign, but FireEye hasn’t publicly attributed the attack to Russia.

U.S. officials familiar with the postcard are investigating whether it was sent by people associated with a Russian intelligence service due its timing and content, according to Reuters. This suggests Russian intelligence officials had internal knowledge of the massive hack well before it was publicly disclosed in December, Reuters said. FireEye declined to comment to CRN on the Reuters report.

[Related: Kevin Mandia: 50 Firms ‘Genuinely Impacted’ By SolarWinds Attack]

The postcard did not on its own help FireEye find the breach, but rather arrived in the early stages of the threat intelligence vendor’s investigation, Reuters said. This led people familiar with the card to believe the sender was attempting to discourage further inquiry by intimidating a senior executive. Reuters said U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are spearheading a probe into the postcard’s origin.

FireEye blew the lid off the hacking campaign Dec. 8 when the company disclosed that it was breached in an attack designed to gain information on some of the company’s government customers. Before entering the corporate world, Mandia spent six years in the U.S. Air Force, where he was a computer security officer at the Pentagon and a special agent in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

A person familiar with the postcard investigation told Reuters actions like these aren’t typically in the playbook of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, or APT29, but noted that “times are rapidly changing.” The U.S. Cyber Command sent private messages to Russian hackers ahead of…

Source…

Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce Trademark Bullies Kevin Smith’s Podcast Over Hollywood Sign

/in

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is somewhat infamous for its constant trademark bullying over the famed Hollywood sign (you know the one). Its latest target is apparently the Hollywood Babble-On podcast that is done as a live show each week by radio/podcast guy Ralph Garman and filmmaker/entertainer Kevin Smith. Before the show this past weekend, Garman had tweeted out that it might be the last Hollywood Babble-On ever. In the opening minutes of their latest episode, Garman explains that they’ve received a cease and desist letter from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce “re: unauthorized use of Hollywood stylized mark and Hollywood Walk of Fame mark.”

While I haven’t seen the full cease-and-desist letter, from what Garman said on the podcast, the issue is so ridiculous that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce should be called out for blatant trademark bullying. You see, while this is the normal logo/image promoting the podcast:

At times, they’ve used other images, such as this one:

It’s that image that is apparently part of the problem (even though it’s not clear how often it was used). The Chamber of Commerce is using the Hollywood style lettering, which is an approximation of the famous Hollywood sign, and the star behind their heads (which it apparently believes is an implied reference to the stars on Hollywood’s walk of fame), to argue that this is unauthorized use of their marks. Some trademark lawyers will likely disagree, but this seems like classic trademark bullying.

If you’re unfamiliar with the podcast (and I’ll confess to being a loyal listener from Episode 1 through the latest, and got to see the show once live at Kevin’s invitation after he was on our podcast a few years ago), it’s a fun (frequently not safe for work) show looking at some highlights from the week’s entertainment news, mixed in with a series of re-occurring bits, frequently involving Garman’s rotating cast of impressions. In short, it’s two funny guys, who are both in show business and have been for many years, goofing off talking about show business, frequently mocking some of the crazier news stories coming out of that business.

In other words, there’s no way in hell that anyone in their right mind thinks that this podcast is officially sanctioned by “Hollywood” as some sort of official Hollywood product. The whole thing is kind of gently mocking some of Hollywood’s sillier foibles. Indeed, this seems like a perfect use case for the old standby in trademark law: the “moron in a hurry” test. And, to make it more relevant to the hobbies of choice of Ralph and Kevin, I think it could be argued that neither a drunk, nor a stoned “moron in a hurry” would ever face even the slightest “likelihood of confusion” that Hollywood somehow had endorsed the podcast, just because it briefly had images showing slightly askew letters and a star.

It remains one of the more frustrating aspects of trademark law that so many people believe that it means you get total control over the marks in question. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s only in cases where there is a likelihood of confusion that people would be confused and believe that the mark holder is behind (or otherwise endorses) the products and services in question. And here, that seems pretty difficult to believe. Of course, rather than fight these kinds of things out, it’s frequently much easier to just pay up, which may be what the lawyers for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce are banking on.

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