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Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architectur

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architecture

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architecture

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architecture

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architecture

Randall Stephenson's 2010 compensation was 27.3 million USD.

To put that in perspective, a doctor or lawyer who managed to earn $250,000 (the threshhold of Obama's definition of wealth) for 40 consecutive years starting at age 26 would have grossed 10 million USD by the time they reached retirement age.

Let them eat fees!

4) The stimulus funds did not "take over" any industries. Give one example. Just one. Literally, I want you to name a single American business which is now government owned because of the stimulus. Either that, or come back and apologize for lying.

Stimulus funds came with strings... no, ROPES attached and did amount to a takeover. You want an example?

Second, stimulus dollars came with strings attached that are now causing enormous budget headaches. Many environmental grants have matching requirements, so to get a federal dollar, states and cities had to spend a dollar even when they were facing huge deficits. The new construction projects built with federal funds also have federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements that raise state building costs to pay inflated union salaries.

Worst of all, at the behest of the public employee unions, Congress imposed "maintenance of effort" spending requirements on states. These federal laws prohibit state legislatures from cutting spending on 15 programs, from road building to welfare, if the state took even a dollar of stimulus cash for these purposes.

Here is a story about banks either turning down TARP or leaving the program after the government started changing the rules after the money went out.

5) TARP was passed by Bush, and didn't take over banks in any case.

Passed under Bush, about three months before he left office. Completely administered under Obama and extended by Geitner. Geitner, btw, is the guy who didn't pay his taxes that Obama made treasury secretary. I guess you are OK with that too. Seriously, would you have been OK if Bush put a drug addict in charge of the DEA and a Klan Grand Wizard in charge of Civil Rights?

6) The health care law does not take over anything. It puts some new regulations on private insurance companies, prevents individuals from abusing the system with an individual mandate, and helps individuals for whom the mandate would be burdensome by providing them with subsidies. Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. The man is lying to you.

Whoever pays the bills makes the rules. If you don't believe that, you are lying to yourself. If you think that it took over 2000 pages of "we have to pass it to know what's in it" to do nothing more than, "It puts some new regulations on private insurance companies, prevents individuals from abusing the system with an individual mandate, and helps individuals for whom the mandate would be burdensome by providing them with subsidies.", then you should not leave the house without your helmet.

7) New environmental controls?

Do you not watch the news? Look up the Keystone Pipeline. You'll also notice how the rejection of the pipeline helps out Obama supporters, like Warren Buffett. Obama rejecting the pipeline is also a boon for China, who will get the oil instead of us.

Of course, there is also the strict limitations on drilling in the Gulf... or off the east or west coast or on land and especially in Alaska. We can't drill in the Gulf of Mexico, but China can for Cuba. Deep water drilling is banned in the Gulf of Mexico, but Obama funded it in Brazil. That oil and those jobs are also going to China, by the way.

Strange. I just noticed that it seems that China is benefiting much more for Obama's environmental concerns than the actual environment is, which was my point. Obama's regulations do nothing for the environment, harm it if anything. The rejection of the keystone pipeline means that oil w

Segways were a complete failure because they were incredibly impractical.

The fact that the CEO for Segway died after accidentally driving one off a cliff into a river didn't help much either.

I am pretty pissed at how stupid some people seem to be in believing the crap the Republicans are spewing. Skipping all the anti-Obama/Democrat campaign crap, how about: Gingrich *not* a Washington insider - seriously? Gingrich defending the sanctity of marriage - seriously? Romney *just* pays the taxes he's obligated to pay - after he and Bain Capital (and other similar firms) lobbied to defeat the law designed to end the 15% tax cap for carried interest - seriously? Ya, the Democrats are not perfect either, but seriously?

Switching gears... How about 30 Major U.S. Companies Spent More on Lobbying than Taxes.

Sorry, stupidity and hypocrisy bug me.

We don't need SOPA and PIPA as currently written, but we need something.

Do we?

Except Republicans, conservatives, Christians, people who respect the constitution. They're all free game.

You almost had a point there until you got around to trolling with the "people who respect the constitution" part. And yeah, a lot of people hate a lot of the so-called values that many Republicans, conservatives and Christians have been pushing these days. But that coin has two ugly sides to it, so let's not pretend like there's anything unique going on here.

If you put Conservatives, Republicans and Christians in one group, and "people who respect the constitution" in another group, then I think you've covered everyone. (with very little overlap)

Then your thinking is very, very wrong.

It's more like fraud. And fraud is a criminal offence with substantial penalties in many places, because it is damaging to the victims,

You may be the first I have seen who compares piracy to being more like fraud than stealing. I don't understand your reasoning, could you elaborate?

is unfair to those who conduct their financial business legally, and can have severe economic consequences if done on a large scale.

How is it unfair to people who do their business legally? How is it unfair in a legal sense where piracy is legal? How are there severe economic consequences when piracy has been shown to have positive effects for the economy?

Well, the first recorded usage of the term in the sense we're talking about is given in the early 1700s by most etymological dictionaries, so you're only off by three centuries [etymonline.com]. Hey, at least you were close.

Wiki says at least since 1603, so at the most I was off by a century.

Well, given that Slashdot readership is obviously neutral on this issue, I'm sure that's a representative sample of the literature.

I'm also struggling to find all those studies, but I suppose it's just that my Google-fu is weak. Maybe you could help me out by citing some of them?

The slashdot readership is irrelevant, as they had no influence on the studies that Slashdot chose to report.

Some links to studies:

Do Illegal Copies of Movies Reduce the Revenue of Legal Products? The case of TV animation in Japan

Swiss Government Study Finds Internet Downloads Increase Sales

Canadian Study: Piracy Boosts CD Sales

I hope that helped. You're Google-fu must indeed be weak.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of abundant high-quality work created by people who have rent to pay.

You seem to imply that piracy will prevent the people who create high quality work from being able to pay their rent. That doesn't seem to match with the evidence. Care to elaborate?

Here is good info on the issue:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2011/12/21/falcones-lightsquared-faces-enemies-on-all-sides/

Don't forget that Antonio Perez has been overpaid in comparison to the performance of the company.

Note that his pay went up in the rankings while Kodak slid further and further down.

The DHS looked at surveillance from vans with long-distance X-ray capability
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/03/02/docs-reveal-tsa-plan-to-body-scan-pedestrians-train-passengers/
e.g. "drive-by" mode and covert screening from vans http://www.as-e.com/zbv/
http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanners/Body_Scan_FOIA_Docs_Feb_2011.pdf
They build up a 3d like view of metal vehicles. You would think every person in the area would get into shielded rooms (control and guarded waiting room) as the vehicle in question was scanned.
I guess radiation is now 100% safe in the USA.

The origin of the scanners can be traced back to a not-so-obvious source: President Obama's signature American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus bill. That awarded a $27.3 million contract to American Science and Engineering, or AS&E, to build 35 scanners, according to a description at Recovery.gov. Soon afterward, X-ray scanners appeared at the San Ysidro, Calif., checkpoint, sometimes called the world's busiest land crossing; other locations listed in the specification include El Paso, Texas, Columbus, N.M., and Nogales, Ariz.

Oh, for crying out loud. Thanks a lot, government..

Brought to you by the same administration that gave guns to international crime lords.

and I am going to provide a retort every time I see your lying propaganda shill, plant and stooge posts appear on /. about this topic.

ACLU

UPDATE I: Don't be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

--

ACLU: President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law

"President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. "The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally."

âoeWe are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,â said Romero. "Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAAâ(TM)s detention authority."

Huffington Post: History Will Judge Obama On NDAA

Obama's WORTHLESS signing statement

The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable.

--

Forbes: President Obama Signed the National Defense Authorization Act - Now What?

There is some controversy on this point, in part because the law as written is entirely too vague. But whether or not the law will be used to indefinitely detain US citizens domestically, it is written to allow the detention of US citizens abroad as well as foreigners without trial.

... right up until the day where they are done routinely at birth and you leave the hospital jugging a baby, birth certificate, and a flash drive containing its DNA sequence.

Which might happen sooner rather than later:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/01/10/not-quite-the-1000-genome-but-maybe-close-enough/

"Yale geneticist Richard Lifton, who was the first to document the use a DNA sequence to diagnose a disease, is looking at utilising the Proton for clinical work. In the state of Connecticut, where Yale is based, infants are tested for 43 different genetic mutations that need to be detected early in infancy. The Proton could be a better way to do that that traditional methods, especially given its ability to deliver results quickly."

There's going to come a point when even whole genomes are cheaper to do than a few dozen separate conventional tests.

I see how you get that. You misunderstood the numbers or what I'm saying...

While paying a tax rate of 18% for the wealthiest americans
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/07/25/the-400-richest-americans-pay-an-18-tax-rate/

and a tax rate of 24% for the top 1% of americans
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/10/25/beyond-the-1-percent/

The share of federal taxes they pay is 36%.

They reason they pay a lower rate but a higher share of taxes is that they take much more than their share of the countries income.

The top 1% has 40% of the nation's wealth and takes home 24% of the entire countries income. They took just 9% in the 1970's.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/?mobile=nc

---
Let me put it this way.. if these trends continue, by 2040 they will have 75% of the nations income. At that point- since they took most of the income, they would pay even more of the income tax even if their income tax rate fell even further.

---
And let me put it another way....
If you take home a FOURTH of the nation's income, and everyone doesn't really pay taxes on the first 6k of their income, then you will pay a THIRD of the total taxes.

---
Had an error in my post above. The gas tax on the poor is 1.6%, not 5%. And it's still .000185% on the top 1%.

---
And FYI, the top 1% is really just a cover for the top .5%. The bottom half of the top 1% are basically poor compared to the top .5%.

$380k per year income. (bottom of the top .5%)
Millions to Multi millions per year in income (top of the top .5%)
http://www.lcurve.org/

Having lived in Rochester and worked at Kodak I'm quite saddened by the current state of the company, although it's a fate completely self inflicted. As for the 'government attacking business' line, Kodak deserved it's anti-trust come-uppance. You didn't mention Kodak also got barred from selling private label film for anti-trust reasons (1921). As well they were barred from mandating Kodak processing for Kodak films (1954). (just like Ford can't force you legally to go to for for repair service) a short summary of Kodak's history with the Sherman Antitrust Act

In short, Kodak did some illegal things and got busted. Stuff that's illegal for very very good reasons. However, Kodak ultimately failed because they lacked foresight and made bad business decisions. Here's a Forbes article citing a few cases: How Success Killed Eastman Kodak

The ultimate Irony that will probably be lost on you is that based on free market principles Kodak is a perfect example of the market doing it's job and punishing a company that has not kept up and is no longer producing valuable products services that people want to buy. By EVERY measure they deserve their fate. If they HAD NOT been 'attacked by the ebil gubment' this fate would probably have been avoided, and we probably wouldn't even have digital imaging now because they would have invented it, sat on it and/or prevented digital cameras from being imported. When I think about the amount of astronomy tech and science, defense tech, consumer imaging (camera phones, etc), professional imaging that would likely have been prevented or severely retarded (as in slowed down) by allowing Kodak to throw it's weight around owning all imaging/picture taking back in the 20's and 50's, I'm in fact quite grateful that we prevented a monopolist from abusing it's position.

Imagine where we would be now if we continued with that policy instead of abandoning it. *sigh*

So 3 years from now, when the anachronistic "main street" retailers finally figure out that sales tax wasn't the issue, it will likely be too late for them to do anything about it.

Very well made point. In fact, the same idea was covered in this recent article: Why Best Buy is Going Out of Business...Gradually

Government taxes have little to do with it. When most of the manufacturing was moved to Asia, skill sets started to atrophy. It is very hard to find skilled manufacturing managers, engineers, or even operators in the West because there are few places to build up those skills.

You are spot on. Last August Forbes published an article explaining that Amazon couldn’t make a Kindle in the US even if it wanted to citing, among other things:

• The flex circuit connectors are made in China because the US supplier base migrated to Asia.
• The electrophoretic display is made in Taiwan because the expertise developed from producting flat-panel LCDs migrated to Asia with semiconductor manufacturing.
• The highly polished injection-molded case is made in China because the U.S. supplier base eroded as the manufacture of toys, consumer electronics and computers migrated to China.
• The wireless card is made in South Korea because that country became a center for making mobile phone components and handsets.
• The controller board is made in China because U.S. companies long ago transferred manufacture of printed circuit boards to Asia.
• The Lithium polymer battery is made in China because battery development and manufacturing migrated to China along with the development and manufacture of consumer electronics and notebook computers.

In other words, outsourcing screws a lot more people than those being fired.

RT.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/12/facebook-admits-hiring-pr-firm-to-smear-google/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/05/12/facebook-admits-being-behind-smear-campaign-against-google/

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cdd1ea06-7cc0-11e0-994d-00144feabdc0.html

Time to retire this handle now, shill. Sleep well knowing you not only are basically a paid liar, but you have now resorted to insulting people for your job.

From Forbes magazine's Nov 2011 edition; emphasis mine:

[Dropbox] has solved the “freemium” riddle, with revenue on track to hit $240 million in 2011 despite the fact that 96% of those users pay nothing. With only 70 staffers, mostly engineers, Dropbox grosses nearly three times more per employee than even the darling of business models, Google. [CEO Drew Houston] claims it’s already profitable.

After all, you don't need to hide if you haven't done anything wrong.

Right; because Justice is blind, and no one get jailed over bullshit.

now, do us all a favor and take a flyin' fuck at a rollin' doughnut, you hideous troll you.

Uh how does it suck? It's BECAUSE they are different that's why capitalism needs to be in check more than democratically elected Governments.

Who gets the power in democratically elected Governments? Those who get the most votes. The votes come from voters who each have one vote.

Who gets the power in free market capitalism? The ones who can accumulate/control the most $$$$/capital/leverage.

If a democratically elected (even though imperfectly) Government starts misbehaving, each voter has the same power (and responsibility) as other voters to change the Government or the Government's behaviour. If the voters keep reelecting a misbehaving Government, it's THE VOTERS' FAULT. They are saying they want it that way. A vocal minority might disagree, but so what? That's what Democracy is all about - the people get the power to change/screw up their country if they so choose.

Whereas if a Corporation starts misbehaving, only a few elites might have the power to change the Corporation's behaviour. Not all powerful corporations have millions of "normal people" as their customers or shareholders that they have to care about.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/11/21/the-147-companies-that-sort-of-control-sort-of-everything-full-list-revealed/

Those 147 companies may not actually have that much control over everything, but from that you should see that the normal person has even less control over many of the companies that those 147 "control" (own significant stake in), or those 147.

The boss of Barclay's does not have to care what those "OWS" bunch say or do, nor what voters say.

Hanging off of your post a little bit, there's been some rumblings in the news about the Chinese DF-21, which is basically a straight up, straight down mortar shell designed to sink aircraft carriers (and other local battleships) within an 1100 mile radius (that includes singapore, japan, and both koreas). Sort of the same functionality as an ICBM, but with more conventional explosives attached. The big problem is that they come down at mach 2 or faster, making them difficult to detect, let alone intercept.
 
Forbes alluded to this saying "its surface vessels are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese attack"
 
While I doubt we'd unwrap the ICBMs, there's no reason to think this non-nuclear-ized technology exists. We've already retired battleships from the navy, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that Carriers are on their way out too.
 
More reading:
  http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-china-joins-the-yacht-club/
  http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/

Erm, try again:

European customers yawning at Microsoft/Nokia Windows phone. ... lukewarm response in Europe despite rock-bottom dumping prices financed by Microsoft who badly wants Android to fail.

Of course it fails. Nokia knows how to make very good hardware with good software. On top of that Nokia phones are quite modable, or open if you like. Now imagine replacing the software component with that piece of shit windows phone that is as closed as anything coming out of Apple. Its no wonder Nokia customers are giving the finger to windows phones.

Americans customers don't have any idea of just open and dynamic the phone market is in europe.
By contrast the US situation is shit with a big S. Only an idiot would throw away a Nokia phone to replace it with a windows phone.

Erm, try again:

European customers yawning at Microsoft/Nokia Windows phone. ... lukewarm response in Europe despite rock-bottom dumping prices financed by Microsoft who badly wants Android to fail.

Here is an article about the book. The article is free.

Palmisano was not well liked within IBM. He was after all the guy who told IBM's US employees they could take a job in the third-world at third-world wages or stay in the US and get sacked. For this Palmisano will be forever despised.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/ibms-palmisano-techs-slumdog-millionaire-257

Sure, the business press has wet dreams about Palmisano and Gerstner who picked him as his successor:

http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/03/forbes-india-person-of-the-year-sam-palisan-ibm.html

But the truth was really quite ugly. You won't read this in Forbes, but you will read it in - of all places - the reader feedback at Amazon:
It is strangely ironic that, after doing his best to suppress all negative communication within IBM, it should be the reader feedback on amazon.com that alerts Gerstner to what the world at large really thinks of him.

In the last five years, Gerstner has reaped a profit of [$$$] million in the sale of awarded stock options. These stock options were awarded while he held the joint positions of IBM CEO and chairman. During that period, IBM spent [$$$] billion buying back its own stock to drive the price up so that executives could cash out at handsome profits. This is money that could have been spent on developing new products, attracting new talent and honoring promises made to employees and retirees.

Where did all that money come from?

Not from profit growth, which remained flat at about 2 percent per year when you strip out the retirees' pension fund surplus "vapor profits."

It came from selling off large chunks of the company and its assets, laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing pension and health care benefits for employees and retirees. In 2002 alone, IBM has quietly cut 15,000 jobs. Health benefits, which were promised "free for life," now cost retirees a substantial amount of their pensions. Only one minuscule cost-of-living increase has been awarded pension recipients in the past 11 years.

The greed doesn't stop there. Now, Lou had not only been retained as chairman of the board, he has been awarded a 10-year consulting contract, with fully paid expenses at his previous salary of $2 million a year. These expenses have been conservatively estimated to be $100,000 annually.

Save IBM? More like turning it into just another money grubbing corporation while lining his pockets. I would love to see a rebuttal book. God help us all if Lou's management methods become benchmarks for future corporate leaders.

http://www.amazon.com/Elephants-Dance-Inside-Historic-Turnaround/product-reviews/0060523794/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/185-5256096-7601530?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

So what? It's not like iPads and iPhones are the only devices they're making. In fact, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and other Asian countries are making almost all of electronics in the whole world. They might only profit 2% of every device, but the sheer scale of the whole manufacturing industry more than makes up for that.

There's an appropriate quote by TSMC Chairman Morris Chang: "You Americans measure profitability by a ratio. There’s a problem with that. No banks accept deposits denominated in ratios. The way we measure profitability is in 'tons of money'. You use the return on assets ratio if cash is scarce. But if there is actually a lot of cash, then that is causing you to economize on something that is abundant."

That's just a lot of fingerpointing and maybes. What happened is that someone of them found an easily exploitable site, possibly an sql injection or a known vulnerability in an off the shelf software. They then made up a silly excuse about how it is righteous for them to hack said site and did so. Previously they have exploited a message boards softwares failure to strip html tags to post flashing images on a board for epileptics, blaming any seizures caused by said images on the webmasters failure to secure his software. Dumped customer email and usernames to a porn site because uh.. people looking at porn are bad? Hacked a Finnish government site becasue uh... Finland is ruled by a brutal military regime suppressing freedom of expression?

This is an important point. One of the biggest economic phenomena in history, the US housing bubble, was not even acknowledged by prominent economists, government or private. They solemnly intoned such a thing didn't exist and all was well. Economics remains firmly a social science. A worthwhile field of study, but not subject to scientific rigor and generally not yielding testable hypotheses.

Many say the massive stimulus (deficit spending) saved the world economy. It's an unfalsifiable assertion.

The Economist magazine had a most interesting discussion on the similarities between the 1930s and today, with a discussion of the responses.

Steam got hacked as well. http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2011/11/10/steam-hacked-newell-watch-your-credit-card/

Cause after over several months underwater, there is NO way you are gonna get a clean room facility up to snuff & speed in a matter of days.

Not days. Restoring the WD factory took about 6 weeks. It's still a bit spurious, I'll give you that.

Too late! She escaped to Arizona. Better call the Mexican army.

Soooo, she's actually *not* unemployed?????

Capitalism has abstracted its way away from actual productivity and into financial masturbation.

Even Forbes agrees with you.

Thing is, though, it is the 0.1% who get to play. Just the way the system works.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/20/the-top-0-1-of-the-nation-earn-half-of-all-capital-gains/

It's a nice idea that everyone gets to play, but like it or not, this tool has been pretty much completely conscripted by not the top 1%, but by the top 0.1%.

We've already got one.

They're just too smart to take titles like "earl" and "duke".

But they most certainly exist.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/20/the-top-0-1-of-the-nation-earn-half-of-all-capital-gains/

Absolutely ownership has significant impact on what gets printed and covered, and how.

Folks like Hirst and Murdoch were and are blatant. But corporations like GE and Disney most certainly have "standards and guidelines" that come from the top. And the folks at the top very much have a vested interest in low tax rates for the top 0.1% (who get half the capital gains these days) and thus tend to push a right wing agenda.

And - I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, exactly. More like a few, extremely powerful entities acting in a like manner to preserve their own self interests. No collusion is necessary.

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

IBM using their patent portfolio.

Actually, the problem with that theory is that the health care reform package limits overhead to 15% for group packages and 20% for individual packages. The question is how that's going to be defined and the DHHS is making them include sales charges as overhead. Ultimately, they might be still around as private insurers, but the profit is going to be absolute crap as they'll have to rebate any money they take in on premiums above that back to the subscribers.

Ultimately everybody enrolls in health insurance at some point. There are a small number of Christian Scientists and similar that do opt out, but essentially nobody truly opts out. The question is whether you make them a part of the system early enough to do the preventative care necessary to stave off major health problems or if you wait until they hit Medicare enrollment age and try to fix what you can.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/

Could we link better?

Researchers at the security firm Accuvant released a study Friday that gauges the security features of the top three web browsers. Accuvant admits the study was funded by Google, and naturally, Chrome came out on top.

"Chrome came out on top" is the link to a blog article? What about

Researchers at the security firm Accuvant released a study Friday that gauges the security features of the top three web browsers. Accuvant admits the study was funded by Google, and naturally, Chrome came out on top. (Forbes reviews the study.)

The text of the link indicates the thing being linked to.

And, Soulskill:

The full research document is available here (PDF), and it goes into much greater detail than the Forbes article. Accuvant also published the tools and data they used in the study, which should help to evaluate their objectivity.

Not so bad. Could be a wee better, but I won't harp on the matter.

Anyway, less deciphering of what links mean lets us have a more enjoyable news reading experience.

Western Digital has restarted HDD production in Thailand earlier than expected.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/12/02/western-digital-lifts-dec-qtr-view-restarts-thai-mfg-shrs-up/

As I understand it (oblig IANAL), if you can pass a state bar exam, you are a lawyer in that state. You don't have to prove your education in law, or have affiliation with any recognized lawyers' associations. You just need to prove you know everything you could have learned in law school, but didn't. As it is, you can represent yourself in a court of law and it's a bonus if you actually know the protocol, so you are, for all purposes, a lawyer for yourself (Yes, I know there's a difference between representing yourself versus someone else.)

You understand it incorrectly. Passing the state bar exam is one barrier to entry (a VERY DIFFICULT barrier), but you also have to pass the MPRE (an ethics exam), possibly take an additional ethics course (if you're in New York, like I am) and finally, submit an application to the court for admission. The application is very thorough - I just sent mine in and had to include reference letters from every attorney I ever worked with and had to list every job and residence I've had for the last ten-odd years. Here's a link to the packet, if you want to look it over. After you have submitted the packet, you get grilled by the character and fitness committee and then, if you make it through that step, you become a lawyer.

I believe that the original poster isn't a great journalist. (Did you see how I qualified that?) He or she didn't bring up the fact that after creating websites like obsidianfinancesucks.com, she offered her services to Obsidian to clear up their "PR Problem" at $2,500 a month. That seems like an important fact that someone might need to shape his or her opinion on the ruling. As I understand the judge's ruling, it doesn't bar all bloggers from being considered journalists, just this one and even then, only as it applies to this case.

Android phones are also the best performing phones out there.

[cite needed]

If Apple's user experience was that much better, and specs didn't matter anymore, then why isn't Apple winning the phone race too?

You're wondering why a single company with three basic phones (3GS, 4, 4S) doesn't outsell a dozen competitors with about a dozen models each? Yeah, I wonder why not. Of course if you're trying to instigate a "stats war", Apple does win when it comes to the bottom line [1] ... maybe it's better to have less model variations and more quality?

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/canaccordgenuity/2011/11/04/apple-takes-half-nokia-relegated/

Show me a drug which cures Alzheimers. Show me a cure for Type 1 diabetes, or celiac, or Parkinsons or Huntingdons. Or arthritis. Show me a new antibiotic that works on pandrug-resistant staph.

Miracles all around and you don't even know it. Shit's crazy.

Can't give you cures for the specific diseases you've listed, but if you want a big-scary-incurable disease, how about VRTX's Kalydeco, the first drug to actually addresses the root cause of Cystic Fibrosis?

If you take a look at VRTX's stock chart this year, you'll see it's been quite a wild ride. That's because curing CF is just one of the things they've been fiddling with...

Show me a cure for any viral infection, or even an effective palliative for the common cold.

Incivek can't cure the common cold, but Hepatitis C is definitely viral. Incivek is VRTX's cure for HepC, and is effective in about half the time of the previous leading therapy. Incivek was was approved last May, and may be rendered obsolete in less than 2-3 years VRUS's PSI-7977 (still in clinical trials) treatment for HepC, which promises a pill-based cure. Cures as fast as Incivek, but no more interferon injections. The tech was promising enough that VRUS got bought out by GILD for $137 two weeks ago. VRUS's stock was in single digits less than a year ago.

I see miracles all around me,
Do due diligence, it's all astoundin',
VRUS, VRTX, don't mean to be curt,
Fuckin' biotech, how does it work?
(And I don't wanna talk to a stock analyst,
Those motherfuckers lyin', and gettin' me pissed. :)

This "multiplatform device management" BS is just another one of your mistakes. You are using publicly available API's for managing iOS and Android devices.

There are other companies which do this as well.

How are you differentiating yourself? You are not.

What are you doing instead? You are confusing the market by branding it along with Blackberry Enterprise Server and you're also diluting your brand value.

I am not the ( or one of the ) CEO's of RIM but I can summarize what you should do:

- Focus on getting BBX based phones out ( and change the name to something else )

- Focus on getting the Playbook OS 2.0 update out with native email and calendaring

- Don't focus on other side things that dilute your brand value further. You already tried with Blackberry connect for Nokia before and how did that help? It did not. It just helped Nokia's E series get noticed as a serious business phone

- With this MDM, you wont be able to make even the ( bungled-up) difference that you made with Blackberry Connect for Nokia.

Last and not the least for God's sake don't think that Blackberry Mobile Fusion will help sell more PlayBooks just because it works with iOS and Android.

Make sure you get PlayBooks to talk to BES/BIS.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Just your average 27 year old geek without an MBA degree.

Steve Jobs regretted not having surgery immediately after his diagnosis. He went the alternate route first, and while medical treatment might not have cured him, it almost certainly would have helped more than basically not doing anything at all.