Page 371 - Tim Cushing News Today

Mon, Jan 11th 2021 8:18pm — Tim Cushing The hits just keep on coming for US federal agencies affected by the massive Solarwinds hack. State-sponsored hackers -- presumably Russian -- leveraged Solarwinds massive customer base and compromised update server to infect systems around the world. Here in the United States, a possible 18,000 Solarwinds customers are affected… as are their users and customers, which brings the possible number of infected back up into the millions. The DHSs cyber wi...

Fri, Nov 13th 2020 3:35am — Tim Cushing The Trump Campaign is back in court, hoping to reclaim a presidency Donald Trump has lost. It spent plenty of time in court prior to the election, hoping to prevent as many people as possible from voting. Now, its doing the same thing, insisting (without evidence) theres voter fraud everywhere. Immediately following Election Day, the Trump campaign opened its own voter fraud hotlines. People who thought they observed voting fraud were encouraged to call...

Fri, Jan 8th 2021 10:49am — Tim Cushing It should be pretty clearly established by now that giving the finger to public officials (in every case listed here, police officers) is protected expression. Even if the expression isnt protected, it sure as shit doesnt justify detainment, arrest, or the seizure of someones property. Decisions have been handed down by both state and federal courts saying giving a cop the bird is protected expression. And if it isnt necessarily protected (due to courts...

Thu, Jan 7th 2021 9:47am — Tim Cushing All the cops in the federal shops say "going dark" is a thing. Local cops have much less to say about the issue, even though theyve got as much at stake. The FBI cant be trusted to count its own inventory of "locked" devices, so how much of a problem encryption poses is still highly theoretical. Which is the way the FBI and DOJ want it. We live in a golden age of surveillance. Much of it is self-enabled. Phones track users wherever they go, an unfortunat...

Wed, Jan 6th 2021 3:23am — Tim Cushing "Going dark" is a "problem" that appears to be localized almost entirely at the federal level. While numerous options have presented themselves over the years, the FBI, DOJ, and the presidents law enforcement commission continue to claim encryption poses insurmountable problems to law enforcement. With the exception of one Manhattan prosecutor, no one else seems to believe encryption is much of a problem. Encryption may be limiting access to the contents...

[ Note: this is one of multiple posts covering the Commissions 332-page report.] The Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement -- ushered into existence by a 2019 Executive Order -- has released its report [PDF], just in time for the man who ordered it to move out of the White House. President Trump spent his four years defending and praising law enforcement, no matter how often law enforcements actions provoked criticism elsewhere. This report does the same thing, even as it pretends to offer...

Update: The original report from NJ.com and the man's lawyer said that Clearview was involved, however the NY Times has now...

Wed, Dec 30th 2020 3:27am — Tim Cushing Law enforcement -- especially at the federal level -- has spent a great deal of time complaining about an oddity known only to the FBI and DOJ as "warrant-proof" encryption. Device users and customers just call this "encryption" and realize this protects them against criminals and malicious hackers. The federal government, however, sees device encryption as a Big Tech slap in the face. And so they complain. Endlessly. And disingenuously. First off, law ...

[ Note: this is one in a series of posts on the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcements lengthy report on all things police-related.] During his, shall we say… tumultuous single term as president, Donald Trump made it clear law enforcement people were better than regular people, even though a whole lot of regular people were saying otherwise at the time. President Trump will honor our men and women in uniform and will support their mission of protecting the public. The dangerous anti-poli...

Tue, Dec 29th 2020 12:10pm — Tim Cushing Shortly after the coronavirus started showing up everywhere uninvited, President Trump decided to amplify his China-centric trade war with a war of words, referring to the new virus as the "China virus." The Chinese state media responded by suggesting the United States was actually the source of the virus, and then everything just kind of went to hell for awhile. Both countries took turns throwing each others journalists out -- something that made a lo...