Tag Archive for: Movement

London internet attack highlights confusing hacktivism movement

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Moreover, according to Professor Stuart Masnick of MIT, DDoS and other types of attacks used in hacktivism (most notably wiper attacks, where compromised systems are simply cleansed of all their data) are a “blunt weapon.” They are often hard to track even with access to technical details about a given attack. “If you launch a missile, with the technologies and satellites we have today, we can pretty well tell where the missile was launched from,” said Masnick. “If you launch a cyberattack, if you do a little bit of homework … no one knows where it came from.”

In one case, Masnick recalled, a Russian cyber group compromised an Iranian facility and launched a cyberattack from there, meaning that the evidence pointed back to the Iranian government, not Russia. “If you think you know who the attack came from, most likely you’re wrong,” he said. “Because a really good attacker will leave all the evidence pointing in a different direction.”

For the rank-and-file of businesses, staying secure means understanding their risk levels and maintaining a defense-in-depth. “Because hacktivism has its roots in not just protecting yourself from a [cybersecurity] perspective, but from a geopolitical perspective as well, the first thing just to be aware that someone is upset at you,” said Dickson, noting that larger organizations, and those more intimately involved with national infrastructure, are more likely targets.

Defense in depth key to limiting damage from hacktivism attacks

Masnick said that many of the most damaging cyberattacks in recent years have been as severe as they were because of poor security architecture and misconfiguration – not necessarily due to the skill of the attackers. Defense in depth, ensuring that all systems are hardened against attack, is key to limiting the damage from one system being compromised.

“We’ve done a number of studies of relatively sizeable cyberattacks,” he said. “And the thing we found is that … in most cases, there’s over a dozen things wrong,” not just one or two.

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Japan rearms under Washington’s pressure − a wake-up call to the antiwar movement – Workers World

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Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyu islands.

The Dec. 16 announcement by Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of a new defense strategy, while doubling military spending by 2027 to implement it, is the largest defense shake-up in decades and a wake-up call to the antiwar movement. 

The decision includes openly acquiring offensive weapons and reshaping its military command structure for its expanded armed forces. On Dec. 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida’s cabinet.

Japan’s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the “Pivot to Asia,” aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific. 

The movements opposing endless U.S. wars must begin to prepare material and draw mass attention to this ominous threat.

The plan to double military spending will add $315 billion to Japan’s defense budget over the next five years and make Japan’s military the world’s third largest, after the U.S. and China. Defense spending will escalate to 2% of gross domestic product, equal to the goal the U.S. sets for its NATO allies. Japan’s economy is the world’s third largest. 

The Japanese government plans to buy up to 500 Lockheed Martin Tomahawk missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, increase cyber warfare capabilities, manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles and produce its own advanced fighter jets, along with other weapons. The plan shifts from relying solely on missile defense to also embracing “counterstrike” capabilities. 

Three key security documents — the National Security Strategy (NSS), as well as the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP) — shed some of the postwar constraints on the Japanese military.

Article 9 – a class struggle against military rearmament

Although the U.S. occupation force, after defeating Japan’s military in World War II, imposed a “pacifist” constitution on Japan, for decades now U.S. strategists have pressured Japan’s…

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GBT Received Notice of Allowance for its Wireless Movement

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The patent seeks to protect AI empowered, Radio-Based motion detection and imaging IP

SAN DIEGO, March 07, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — GBT Technologies Inc. ( OTC PINK: GTCH ) (“GBT” or the “Company”), received notice of allowance for its wireless motion detection IP patent, which has been internally designated with a code name of “Apollo”. The non-provisional patent describes a radio based, real time motion detection method and system. GBT’s AI technology is the core of the IP, which is in prototype stage, and controls radio waves transmissions and performs reflections analysis. Neural network algorithms analyze the reflected/refracted information to construct 2D/3D images of stationary and in-motion objects. The IP’s described technology, if commercialization, could be implemented within major domains including health monitoring, security and autonomous vehicles computer vision. The patent’s technology describes radio transmissions within specific frequencies, measuring and analyzing the returned reflected waves information with the goal of constructing the object’s live imaging. The AI algorithms IP is designed to detect distinctive patterns, determining living entities and objects. One efficient application for this type of technology is to wirelessly image people’s movements and measuring their vitals. Another possible implementation is to detect people’s fall, and alert for irregular vitals. The IP also includes concepts that can be implemented in the security domain such as intruder prevention, concealed object detection and similar. The described technology works various environments including indoors and outdoors and through walls and other mediums. The described system’s range is designed to be extended to monitor larger areas and facilities using extenders. One of the major IP topics is a vehicle warning application to alert drivers about sleepiness or extreme emotional states.

“We were pleased to receive a notice of allowance for our Apollo, non-provisional patent application, as we truly believe that this type of technology can offer a breakthrough wireless solution in wide variety of domains. The patent seeks to protect the concept of…

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Explained: What is the ‘right to repair’ movement?

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The average consumer purchases an electronic gadget, knowing that it will very quickly become obsolete as its manufacturer releases newer, shinier, and more amped up versions of the same device. As your device grows older, issues start to crop up — your smartphone may slow down to a point where it is almost unusable, or your gaming console may require one too many hard resets. When this happens, more often than not, you are left at the mercy of manufacturers who make repairs inaccessible for most, by dictating who can fix your device and making it an inordinately expensive affair.

So, why aren’t consumers permitted to fix their gadgets themselves? This is a question advocates of the worldwide ‘right to repair’ movement have been addressing for decades now. In recent years, countries around the world have been attempting to pass effective ‘right to repair’ laws. But it is no surprise that the movement has faced tremendous resistance from tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft over the years.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on the Federal Trade Commission to curb restrictions imposed by manufacturers that limit consumers’ ability to repair their gadgets on their own terms. The UK, too, introduced right-to-repair rules that should make it much easier to buy and repair daily-use gadgets such as TVs and washing machines.

So what is the right to repair movement?

Activists and organisations around the world have been advocating for the right of consumers to be able to repair their own electronics and other products as part of the ‘right to repair’ movement. The movement traces its roots back to the very dawn of the computer era in the 1950s.

The goal of the movement is to get companies to make spare parts, tools and information on how to repair devices available to customers and repair shops to increase the lifespan of products and to keep them from ending up in landfills.

They argue that these electronic manufacturers are encouraging a culture of ‘planned obsolescence’ — which means that devices are designed specifically to last a limited amount of time and to be replaced. This, they claim, leads to immense…

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