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What's This? Spy Drone Hacks Wifi Networks, Listens to Calls
Dec 16th, 2014
Daily NewsErin Van der Bellen - PNW
Categories: Contemporary Issues

It's small. It's bright yellow, and it's capable of cracking Wi-Fi passwords, eavesdropping on your cell phone calls and reading your text messages. It's an unmanned spy drone and it just landed in Washington, D.C.

Long-time friends and former Air Force buddies, Mike Tassey and Rich Perkins, describe their state-of-the-art cyber drone as hard to take down, hard to see and virtually hard to detect.

They built it in a garage, using off the shelf electronics to prove a drone can be used to launch cyber-attacks.

It needs a human for take-off and landing but once airborne, it can fly any pre-programmed route posing as a cell phone tower and tricking wireless cell phones.

While it's flying those points, the spy drone has a number of antennas for picking up your cell phone conversation, for picking up blue tooth, and for picking up and monitoring Wi Fi signals.

Tassey and Perkins tested the drone in isolated conditions to avoid breaking laws or recording conversations other than their own.

"We passed telephone calls, hacked into networks, cracked the encryption on Wi-Fi access points all of that sort of evilness is possible," said Tassey.

And now their spy drone has landed in Washington so everyone can see it.

"I think it's fantastic to have an artifact like this in the Spy Museum," said Vincent Houghton, International Spy Museum Curator.

"It's the first of its kind, it's a piece of modern espionage equipment," said Houghton. "This is something governments should be doing and perhaps only government should be doing.

"If two guys from the Midwest can build this for six-thousand dollars in a garage, what can Iran do? What can nation states do?" said Rich Perkins.

The drone has a 50 mile range and while its creators chose a cyber-attack test, they say this technology can be used things like anti-IED missions and search and rescue operations.

Let the Headlines Speak
Dec 16th, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Leaking his 2016 plans: How Jeb Bush is working the media refs  It wasn’t exactly subtle, and that was the point. After more than a year of playing Hamlet, Jeb Bush had left most media and political players wondering if he was just too ambivalent to mount a presidential campaign. And he needed to send a clear, unambiguous signal that he wants to be a contender in 2016. Voila: the magic leak.  

World set to end year in brittle economic state
The global economy is ending the year in a fragile state with factory activity shrinking in China, euro zone business growth remaining weak, and emerging market giant Russia in a spiraling currency crisis. "These are uncertain times again and there is a risk of another global downturn," said Stephen Webster, chief European economist at 4CAST.  

Over 120 Pakistanis, mostly children, killed in Taliban high school attack
At least 126 people, most of them children, were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, taking hundreds of students hostage in the bloodiest insurgent attack in the country in years.  

fter these gun rights poll numbers, Bloomberg might have a Big Gulp
By a margin of 52 percent to 46 percent, Americans say protecting the rights of gun owners is more important than gun control, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released Wednesday. It is the first time Pew found more support for gun ownership than gun control in more than two decades of surveys on the issue.  

SUNSPOT OF INTEREST
A sunspot is rapidly emerging in the sun's southern hemisphere, and it poses a threat for strong geoeffective explosions.  

Sony Meeting After Hackers Vow 'Christmas Gift'
Sony Pictures organized a town hall-style meeting with staff Monday to discuss the massive cyber attack on the Hollywood studio, a day after hackers promised a big "Christmas gift." Staff were called together at its headquarters west of Los Angeles to hear how the company is responding to the ongoing hacking attack which has produced a string of damaging and highly embarrassing leaks.  

The Moral Minority
According to Pew, 51% think the CIA methods against enemy combatants were justified, 56% think we gained useful information from doing so, and 42% oppose the Senate releasing its report while 43% support it. In fact, as Pew noted, “the public expresses the most doubt not about the CIA methods and program itself, but about the Senate committee’s decision to release its report”.  

Estimated 15,000 people join ‘pinstriped Nazis’ on march in Dresden
Its members have been dubbed the “pinstriped Nazis” and they refer to their demonstrations as “evening strolls” through German cities. But on Monday night, an estimated 15,000 people joined Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West, in a march through Dresden carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Zero tolerance towards criminal asylum seekers”, “Protect our homeland” and “Stop the Islamisation”.  

Pakistan Taliban kill scores in Peshawar school massacre
At least 126 people, mostly children, have been killed in a Taliban assault on an army-run school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials say. Five or six militants are said to have entered the building. Five are reported to have been killed, at least one of them in a suicide blast. The army says most of the 500 students have been evacuated. It is not clear if any are still inside.  

Spain IS: Seven held in raids on women recruiters
Seven people have been detained in Spain and Morocco in raids targeting a network recruiting women to join Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, officials say. Four people were held after raids in the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa. There was another arrest in Barcelona.  

Russian rouble in free fall over oil price, EU sanctions
In a surprise announcement on Monday (15 December), the Russian central bank said it would raise its key interest rate to 17 percent from 10.5 percent. The move is aimed at shoring up the tumbling currency as the Russian economy feels the pain of a low oil price - oil and gas are Russia's main exports - combined with US and EU sanctions over Russian involvement in the Ukrainian war.  

Palestinian hurls explosive at IDF, shot dead by soldiers
Palestinian assailants in the West Bank threw a pipe bomb toward IDF forces carrying out an arrest early Tuesday... A Duvdevan unit entered Kalandiya early on Tuesday and arrested a wanted security suspect. On its way out, the unit was attacked by Palestinians, one of whom hurled an explosive at soldiers. Soldiers returned fire, striking the Palestinian who hurled the bomb.  

Iran Readies Ballistic Missiles Against US, FBI Says Iran Hackers Target Key US Departments
Iran's ballistic missiles, radars and satellites against its enemies are all geared up, according to the deputy commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRCG Hossein Salami. The warning comes after the United States announced extended deadline for the Iran nuclear negotiation to July 2015.  

Peter King: Sydney Attack Part of 'Changing Face of Terrorism'
The attack in Sydney in which a gunman held numerous hostages in a 16-hour ordeal was an example of the "changing face of terrorism," Rep. Peter King told Fox News on "America's Newsroom." Man Haron Monis, the Iranian refugee identified in the attack, held an unknown number of people hostage in Lindt Chocolat Cafe in a standoff that began early Monday. The crisis ended after heavily armed police swarmed the cafe early Tuesday morning, local time.  

Sheriff Babeu: Immigration Order Will Defer 20M Deportations
As many as 20 million undocumented immigrants will qualify for President Barack Obama's deferred deportation action, says Paul Babeu, sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona. The number would be an alarming increase from the estimated 5 million initially expected to qualify under the executive action  

No Polite Way to Say it, We Were Lied to on Ebola
The current Ebola outbreak is “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times,” Ian Smith, the World Health Organization’s executive director, announced at a mid-October press conference.  

Correcting the Rise of Political Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is politically motivated. In Germany, the Nazis targeted the Jews in part because they represented liberal democracy and emancipation, the antithesis of everything that an authoritative Nazi Germany stood for.  

Florida asks Supreme Court to block gay marriage
TALLAHASSEE - Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi asked the U.S. Supreme Court late on Monday to block same-sex marriage in the state next month while the state continues its legal defense of its constitutional definition of marriage as a heterosexual union.  

Police storm Sydney cafe to end hostage siege, three dead
SYDNEY - Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed terrified hostages held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which two captives and the attacker were killed.  

Israel seeks U.S. block of Palestinian statehood drive
ROME - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday sought assurances from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Washington would block efforts by Palestinians and Europeans on Palestinian statehood.  

15,000 join anti-Islam protest in eastern Germany
Dresden (Germany) - A record 15,000 people marched Monday in eastern Germany against "asylum cheats" and the country's "Islamisation" in the latest show of strength of a growing far-right populist movement.  

Hong Kong police clear a few final protesters from streets
four days after police cleared the streets around Hong Kong government headquarters of nearly all pro-democracy protesters, authorities on Monday moved against two small bands of holdouts.  

As Ukraine truce holds, Russia vows economic pain
Fighting in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Russian-backed separatist forces has ground almost to halt. That should be good news for Ukraine, but Russia looks intent to pile on the economic misery.  

Iraq jihadists release pictures of mass execution
The Islamic State (IS) group on Monday released pictures of the execution of 13 men described as anti-jihadist Sunni tribal fighters near the northern city of Tikrit. Three pictures published on a jihadist forum and pro-IS social media accounts show the execution of the men wearing orange jumpsuits.  

What would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano actually erupted?
If the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park ever had another massive eruption, it could spew ash for thousands of miles across the United States, damaging buildings, smothering crops, and shutting down power plants. It'd be a huge disaster.  

Obama's Joke Calling Troops 'Santa in Fatigues' Silences Audience
Monday, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, during an address to the troops,... Obama made a joke that they are like "'Santa in Fatigues," which was received with complete silence,  

Jeff Sessions: Funding Exec Amnesty Helps DC, Wall St. 'Super Elites' Realize 'Dream of a World Without Borders'
"The only challenge these great global citizens face are these pesky people called voters who cling to the old-fashioned idea of a nation as a home and a border as something real and worth protecting," Sessions said.  

Iran: U.S. Military Option is Off the Table
Dec 16th, 2014
Daily NewsAdam Kredo - PNW
Categories: Contemporary Issues

A credible U.S. military option against Iran is off the table and something the Obama administration can “no longer even think about,” according to one of Iran’s top military leaders, who claimed in a wide-ranging interview that Iran has deployed advanced missiles and satellites capable of tracking foreign militaries.

Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), scoffed at the Obama administration’s insistence that a credible military option exists against Iran and discussed the Islamic Republic’s offensive military capabilities during a wide-ranging interview on Iranian state-run television.

On the heels of another deal with Iran that extends talks with Western powers over the country’s contested nuclear program through July 2015, Salami accused the United States of bluffing about the threat of military action against Tehran.

“We have denied our enemy any military option,” Salami said in an interview on Iranian television just days after the Nov. 24 extension in talks was announced. “The enemy can no longer even think about a military option.”

“When senior U.S. officials use the term ‘military option,’ it is only for psychology purposes,” Salami said, according to a translation of his Farsi language remarks provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “It is an outdated bluff. It is a banal and decayed theory. To use the Americans’ own words, it is ‘political decay.’”

Salami went on to declare that U.S. sanctions against Iran—which have been significantly weakened under the terms of an interim deal with the West—no longer have an impact on the Iranian economy and will not push the Islamic Republic to make concessions in the nuclear negotiations.

“The Americans believe that their economic sanctions have had an effect on our people or on our economy,” the military leader said. “They believe that they can take their time, wear us down in negotiations, and continue the sanctions.”

“That way, they hope to bring our people to despair, and to lead to political defeat [in the negotiations],” he continued. “We can and must throw these beliefs into the garbage-can of history.”

In the weeks since the extension in nuclear talks was announced—along with around $50 billion in cash payments to Tehran over the next months—Iranian officials have accused the White House of lying about concessions the Islamic Republic has made.

It also has unveiled a range of advanced military hardware following a call by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordering the nation’s military to be on the ready.

IRGC official Salami warned that the country’s ground-to-ground missiles are “capable of reaching enemy targets thousands of kilometers away.”

Israel for instance is about 1,600 kilometers, or 1,000 miles, away from Tehran.

These ballistic missiles “are able to deal deadly blows of various magnitudes to our enemies,” Salami said.

These include missiles that can reach around 2,000 kilometers, making them capable of hitting portions of Europe and much of the Middle East.

The continued construction of ballistic missiles by Iran was not barred under the terms of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran.

Salami also issued a veiled threat to U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf region.

“Our land-to-sea missiles are capable of reaching naval targets deep in the sea,” Salami said. “Our radars are able to detect enemy satellites. Our drones are able to track enemy movements thousands of kilometers beyond our borders. Our helicopters can fly, and our cannons can fire.”

Salami also claimed that Iran has satellites in space that “can see tiny objects on the ground,” as well as “send us photographs and connect us to the entire world.”

The military leader went on to provide further confirmation that Iran is arming Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Relatedly, Hamas officials were in Tehran this week to renew its anti-Israel military alliance with Iran.

“I am sure that the day will come—and that day is not far off—when the West Bank will become a living hell for the security of the Zionists,” he said. “We shall see the day when the children of the West Bank and Gaza will hold hands. Allah willing, that day is near.”

Meanwhile, Iranian commanders announced that the country will test new radar systems and fire at least five new “homemade” missiles next month, according to the country’s state-run press.

Iran unveiled earlier this week a laser simulator to help the country’s troops learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades.

DHS: 100 Million Americans Could Lose Power in Major Sun Storm
Dec 16th, 2014
Daily NewsBill Gertz - PNW
Categories: Warning

Millions of Americans face catastrophic loss of electrical power during a future magnetic space storm that will disrupt the electric grid and cause cascading infrastructure failures, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document.

DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stated in an internal 2012 fact sheet outlining its response plan for severe “space weather” that the actual impact and damage from a future solar storm is not known.

“An analysis of the space weather impacts indicates that the greatest challenge will be to provide life-saving and life-sustaining resources for large numbers of people that experience long-term power outage from damage to the U.S. electrical grid,” the FEMA document, dated March 1, 2012, states.

The FEMA fact sheet noted the findings of a 2010 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that monitors sun storms, warning that an extreme solar storm could leave “130 million people without power for years,” and destroy or damage more than 300 hard-to-replace electrical grid transformers.

Major solar storms are rare. Two major solar disruption events took place in 1859 and 1921, times when electricity was less prevalent than today.

The study said a future solar storm like the great magnetic storm of May 1921 would black out most states east of the Mississippi River along with most states in the Pacific Northwest.

The long-term loss of electrical power likely would produce catastrophic loss of life.

However, the FEMA document disputed that worst-case scenario, noting that in 2011 DHS experts were “not convinced” about the dire consequences outlined in the earlier study.

Still, DHS scientists in 2011 warned that the U.S. electric grid remains vulnerable to damage from an extreme geomagnetic storm. The scientists said the extent of damage to high-voltage transformers from a space storm “are not well known” and the matter needs further study, the report says.

“Based on an analysis of many space weather studies, there does not appear to be specific agreement among space weather and electric industry experts regarding space weather impacts on the U.S. electric grid,” the document says, adding that there is “general agreement among the experts that extreme geomagnetic storms could have significantly damaging impacts on the U.S. electric grid.”

Space weather is defined as conditions on the Sun, in space, in the earth’s magnetic field, and upper atmosphere that impact space and ground technological systems and can “endanger human life on earth,” the report says.

The report outlines the scenario for a major “coronal mass ejection” from the Sun that will first be detected by U.S. satellites. The magnetic band reaches the earth within 24 to 72 hours, affecting up to 100 million people.

The largest such storms, called G-5s, would cause transformers and transmission lines to be “severely damaged.”

The storms last from hours to a day but can disrupt electric power grid operations, GPS satellites, aircraft operations, manned space flight, satellite operations, natural gas distribution pipelines, and undersea communications cables.

GPS satellites could be disrupted causing them to produce false positioning information.

“The extreme geomagnetic space weather event will cause widespread power outages to a large number of people (approximately 100 million people) in a multi-region, multi-state area of the U.S. due to geomagnetic induced currents damaging EHV transformers, especially along coastal regions,” the report says.

Power losses may cause spiraling failures that could lead to loss of systems that control water and wastewater systems, perishable foods and medications, lighting and air conditioning, computer, telephone and communications systems, public transportation, and fuel distribution.

After the magnetic storm passes in some 36 hours, power will be restarted and within 36 hours up to 65 million will regain electric power.

By two weeks, after damaged equipment is replaced or repaired, another 25 million people will have power restored.

However, the report indicates that it would take up to two months to repair or replace damaged electrical power equipment for the remaining 10 million people over six states.

Mark Sauter, an adviser to security companies and coauthor of the textbook Homeland Security: A Complete Guide, said severe space weather poses a major homeland security challenge.

“It occurs rarely, can’t be predicted, full protection is impossibly expensive and the potential impact ranges from inconvenient to cataclysmic,” said Sauter, who obtained the document under the Freedom of Information Act.

“The released documents indicate DHS/FEMA—with buy-in from the electrical industry and U.S. military—has now settled on a ‘plausible’ planning estimate that 25 million Americans could lose power for two weeks and 10 million could be without power for up to two months—and this estimate, the government admits, is 10 percent of one major outside study,” he said.

Sauter said FEMA’s more-than-200-page response plan for dealing with a solar storm was blacked out from the released documents.

“This makes one wonder why FEMA is refusing to release the government’s space weather response plan,” he said. “How would the government deal with 10 million, or many more, Americans without power for two months, or even longer?”

Sauter questioned whether the government is taking the threat of a major solar storm seriously, or is “just going through an obligatory bureaucratic exercise that in reality reflects DHS/FEMA crossing its fingers and hoping that such a plan will never need to be used.”

“Is FEMA simply worried about alarming the public?” Sauter asked. “For example, advice on the DHS Web site urges citizens to disconnect appliances and avoid using the phone during a space weather emergency, but doesn’t go into how people should survive for two months without electricity.”

Peter Pry, a former CIA official who now heads a group that has warned about the impact on the electric grid of a nuclear detonation-caused blackout from electromagnetic pulse, said a congressional EMP Commission warned several years ago of the threat posed by a geomagnetic super storm.

Such an event “could have catastrophic consequences for civilization,” Pry said.

A similar solar blast like the 1859 Carrington Event could collapse electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting the lives of billions at risk, he said.

U.S. utilities are unprepared for major solar storms such as the Carrington Event or the 1921 magnetic storm.

“We are running out of time to prepare,” Pry said, noting that NASA reported in July that Earth narrowly missed a second Carrington Event.

Pry said current legislation known as the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) passed the House last week unanimously and would help protect against natural or manmade EMP.

FEMA spokesman Rafael Lemaitre had no comment on the fact sheet and its outline of the potential damage from a major solar storm

“FEMA constantly monitors and plans for all hazards, and that includes the potential impact from a coronal mass ejection,” he said.

Big Banks will Take Depositors Money in Next Crash
Dec 16th, 2014
Daily NewsGreg Hunter - PNW
Categories: Warning;Contemporary Issues

The G-20 met recently in Australia to make new banking rules for the next financial calamity. Financial reform advocate Ellen Brown says these new rules will allow banks to take money from depositors and pensioners globally. Brown explains, “It became rules we agreed to actually implement. 

There was no treaty, and Congress didn’t agree to all this. They use words so that it’s not obvious to tell what they have done, but what they did was say, basically, that we, the governments, are no longer going to be responsible for bailing out the big banks. These are about 30 international banks. 
So, you are going to have to save yourselves, and the way you are going to have to do it is by bailing in the money of your creditors. The largest class of creditors of any bank is the depositors.” 

It gets worse, as Brown goes on to say, “Theoretically, we are protected by deposit insurance up to $250,000 in the U.S. and 100,000 euros in Europe. The FDIC fund has $46 billion, the last time I looked, to cover $4.5 trillion worth of deposits. 

There is also $280 trillion worth of derivatives that the five biggest banks in the U.S. are exposed to, and under the bankruptcy reform act of 2005, derivatives go first. So, they are basically exempt from these new rules. They just snatch the collateral. 

So, if you had a big derivatives bust that brought down JP Morgan or Bank of America, there is no way there is going to be collateral left for the FDIC or for the secured depositors. This would include state and local governments. 

They all put their money in these big banks. So, even though we are protected by the FDIC, the FDIC is not going to have the money. . . . This makes it legal for these big 30 banks to take our money when they become insolvent. They are too-big-to-fail. 

This was supposed to avoid too-big-to-fail, but what it does is institutionalizes too-big-to-fail. They are not going to go down. They are going to take our money instead.” 

Part of the coming financial calamity will involve hundreds of trillions of dollars in un-backed derivatives. Brown contends, “If the derivative bubble pops, nobody knows what is going to happen, and it’s obvious it has to pop. It can’t just keep growing. Depending on who you read, some people say it is up to two quadrillion dollars. It’s virtual money, and it cannot keep going on.”

When a financial crash does happen, you can forget about getting immediate access to your money. Brown says, “The banks will say, well, we don’t have it. All the money goes into one big pool since Glass Steagall was repealed. 

They are allowed to gamble with that money and that’s what they do. I think maybe Bank of America is the most vulnerable because of Merrill Lynch. Everybody is concerned, and they do very risky deals and they are on the edge. I think they have over $50 trillion in derivatives and over $1 trillion in deposits. . . The Dodd-Frank Act says we, the people, are no longer going to be responsible for the big banks when they collapse. 

It is not clear the FDIC will even be able to borrow from the Treasury, but even if they could, who is going to pay that money back? Let’s say they borrowed $1 trillion. Who is going to pay that $1 trillion back? 

It will bankrupt all the small banks that had to contribute to this premium. They will say we’re raising your premium to everything you got, basically. Little banks will go out of business, and who is going to survive–the big banks. . . . What we’re going to have left is five big banks, and everybody else is going to be bankrupt.”

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