Educational CyberPlayGround NetHappenings Newsletter #Security #K12Education #Health 1-9-2021

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Educational CyberPlayGround NetHappenings Newsletter 1-9-2021
#Security #K12Education #Health

#SECURITY | #K12EDUCATION | #HEALTH

Happy New Year! The truth sets you free and the truth is the best narrative.

Technology is the great equalizer. It empowers anyone in the world to educate themself about any topic. Leverage this weapon to ensure no one controls your mind.

Behind the viral photo of Rep. Andy Kim cleaning up at midnight after riots
“It’s a room that I love so much. … It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

18 U.S. Code § 2384 (Seditious Conspiracy)
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them.

Public Service Announcement
The United States Constitution says that “no Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress” who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution, “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Under the Constitution, there should be an investigation of any U.S. Senator or Representative who encouraged or participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol of Wednesday, January 6, 2021.

Trump *repeatedly* tweeted after the attack began—and never *once* said rioters should leave the Capitol. Even w/ a pardon from Pence, which is highly questionable now, he will still be committing new crimes after a pardon as part of this insurrection. A self pardon is not going to hold up either. Plus NY & he’s trapped.

Rethuglicans published next Insurrection on  January 17th
Trump’s plan B:

The perpetrator of the crime

Moscow Mitch McConnell says Move On

The perpetrator of the crime is not the one who gets to decide it’s time to move on and heal

Video showing exactly how the Terrorists got into the Capital Building

If the mob of insurrectionists had been any color other than lily white, you would have seen the largest military involvement possible. There would have been a bloodbath on the Capitol lawn. Not one person would have made it to the steps, much less inside.

The accumulated grievances found a voice in Donald Trump, who from the first moment when he came down that escalator and denounced immigrants knew he had struck political gold. If you look at the history of peasant revolts in this country and in Europe they don’t just go away quickly.

Lee Harvey Oswald thought he was a patriot. He was not.
John Wilkes Booth thought he was a patriot. He was not.
Many people that cause terror claim to be acting as patriots.
They are not.
Not one person that stormed through the doors of the US Capitol was a patriot.
Not one.

DEMAND THEY BAN
THE TRUMP CRIME FAMILY ACCOUNTS

Why Impeach Trump at This Late Date? One Word, Says Bernie Sanders: ‘Precedent’

Republicans who say we can’t impeach a president 10 days before an inauguration had no trouble confirming a Supreme Court justice 8 days before an election.

“How Trump’s Allies Are Still Defending Him: Denial, Deflection, Disinformation – They falsely claimed President Trump had no role in spurring the assault on the Capitol. They resorted to false equivalencies. Some even questioned whether the mob was an anti-Trump ‘false flag.'”

TRUMP RETHUGLICAN FRIENDS / ENABLERS & LIBERTARIAN THIEVES
Trump’s strategy of appointing gross incompetents to run virtually every department and agency was a conscious, deliberate policy of undermining confidence in government, making it easier to slash programs and budgets, contract-out and privatize.

More Than A Dozen GOP State Lawmakers Attended Rally That Gave Way To Riots

Nikki Haley: History will judge Trump’s enablers, normalizers and cheerleaders including Nikki Haley.  She has deleted, and scrubbed all pro Trump tweets.

!!!!!! If you live in one of these districts, your Representative objected to a legal, democratic election

THIS IS A ROBBERY RT @AngelasInk
#GOP Thugs in Pennsylvania Senate refuse to seat Democrat Jim Brewster of Allegheny County certified by state as winner

TED CRUZ  praised the 1876 commission that “resolved” the election via a Corrupt Bargain that ended the voting rights of African Americans in the South and made the way for a near-century of Jim Crow.

Donald Trump’s Final Days
WSJ’s devoutly *conservative* editorial board just called on Tweety Amin to resign in a well-written commentary.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-final-days-11610062773

Rethuglican Seditionists

‘Trump did consider deploying the National Guard to the US Capitol, New York Times says — to protect his supporters in case people got in their way’ per: NYT

57% of Americans want President Trump immediately removed from office after he encouraged a protest at the U.S. Capitol this week that escalated into a deadly riot.

Alabama AG sTEVE mARSHALL leads nonprofit that helped organize march at Capitol
Attorney General Steve Marshall has not yet publicly addressed his role leading the dark-money group. The Attorney General of Alabama @AGSteveMarshall leads the group that organized the terrorist attack on our Capitol for Trump has been identified. Marshall leads the Republican Attorneys General Association’s dark-money nonprofit Rule of Law Defense Fund, which is listed as a participating organization for the March to B as are the groups Stop the Steal, Tea Party Patriots and Turning Point Action.

Republican AGs group sent robocalls urging march to the Capitol https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581

U.S. pharmacist who tried to ruin Covid vaccine doses is a conspiracy theorist, police say.
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS they are white power, racist, Cheaters and liars since the confederacy and civil war. Trump is their last general.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/04/wisconsin-pharmacist-covid-19-vaccine-doses-steven-brandenburg

SEDITIONISTS Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz
pushed lie after lie that incited an attempted coup that left five people dead. They should resign. If they don’t, they should be investigated and expelled from the Senate. The should be prosecuted regardless of whether they resign or not.
They are insurgents in a republican insurgency. If they are not held accountable they will continue with their coup.

Oregon State Police (OSP) launched a criminal investigation into @GOP Republican Rep. Mike Nearman @RepNearman opened the door for armed far-right demonstrators to get inside the Oregon Capitol during a one-day special session last month. F U #MikeNearman

Capitol Police Chief Sund Quits just hours after he DEFENDED his department’s response to DC riots

Police Chief Warns New Congresswoman About Carrying Gun in DC
D.C.’s police chief issued a stern warning for a new member of Congress U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who tweeted a video of herself purportedly carrying a Glock handgun on the streets of D.C. and on the U.S. Capitol campus. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., posted the video explaining why she plans to carry her gun on the streets of D.C. Let me tell you why I WILL carry my Glock to Congress.
Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 4, 2021

Democrat Introduces Bill to Investigate If Capitol Police Have Ties to White Supremacist Groups

The Mob at the Capitol Proves That Blue Lives Have Never Mattered to Trump Supporters

25 Terrifying Tweets That Members Of Congress And Journalists Actually Had To Send During Trump’s Capitol Riot
“They’ve asked us to take cover on the House floor and get our gas masks ready. This is insane.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/capitol-rioters-congress-tweets-trump

West Virginia Delegate, Derrick Evans, has been charged with federal crimes.

Ali Alexander, the founder of the movement, encouraged people to bring tents and sleeping bags and avoid wearing masks for the event. “If D.C. escalates… so do we,” Alexander wrote on Parler last week — one of scores of social media posts welcoming violence that were reviewed by ProPublica in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s attack on the capitol. Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight.  Insurrectionists made no effort to hide their intentions.

NYPD Says Union’s Trump Endorsement Won’t Affect Enforcement

Va. State Sen. Amanda Chase And Other Lawmakers Attended Pro-Trump Rally : https://www.npr.org/2021/01/09/955128569/more-than-a-dozen-gop-state-lawmakers-attended-rally-that-gave-way-to-riots

_ Arrested Proud Boys chairman has history of business failure, apparently lives with mom
_Adam Johnson, the man seen on video carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern during the invasion of the US Capitol, has been arrested in Pinellas County, Florida
_ Zip Tie Guy has been identified. And, yes, he was at the Capitol insurrection with his mom.
_ Washington rioter identified as son of New York Modern Orthodox judge
_‘Proud Boys Hawaii’ founder arrested after returning to Honolulu following US Capitol riots The FBI arrested Nick Ochs on Thursday night at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport upon his return from Washington, D.C.
_ West Virginia Republican delegate Derrick Evans faces charges
_ Capitol riot: Alabama man Lonnie Coffman caught with Molotov cocktails
_ Video clearly shows Rep. Mike Nearman helping right-wing demonstrators breach Oregon Capitol
_ Adam Johnson, the man seen carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern during the Capitol siege, has been arrested in Florida

Trump’s Internet Is Celebrating. The internet is real life.
The movement behind today’s attempted coup delivered exactly what it has promised for months on social media. https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2021/01/trumps-internet-celebrating/171249/
This was the lesson of Pizzagate in 2016, which made clear that conspiracy theorizing on message boards can lead to a man carrying a rifle into a restaurant. This was the lesson of the deadly Charlottesville rally in 2017, which made clear that online hate is a precursor to offline violence.

QAnon and the Storming of the U.S. Capitol: The Offline Effect of Online Conspiracy Theories
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20210107-qanon-and-the-storming-of-the-u-s-capitol-the-offline-effect-of-online-conspiracy-theories

Voting machine company files $1.3B suit against pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who pushed false election claims

OCCUPATION THREATS TO SECURITY

Cybersecurity and the Occupation of the Capitol
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20210107-cybersecurity-and-the-occupation-of-the-capitol

A physical breach is a nightmare scenario for infosec.
My heart goes out to the unsung IT heroes at the Capitol tonight. My guess is they’ve never had to run asset inventory IR before – a daunting, stressful task in a tabletop exercise – and they’re running one (prob w/o a playbook) following a full on assault of the Capitol.
Just to give folks who aren’t in the field an idea what we’re talking about: – we must assume that foreign agents were among the rioters – snooping devices can be implanted into anything with a power cord – so every device in the capitol is now a potential foreign asset.
So, just for starters: – all computers need to be inventoried, inspected inside and out, and the OS paved/rebuilt – keyboards, mice, &c might now have implants, they probably should be tossed (see eg https://keelog.com/forensic-keylogger/ which looks like a usb cable but is in fact a logger).
Then everything with a power source needs to be audited. This means lamps. Thermostats. Those cute little portrait lights on top of photos. The vacuum cleaner in the storage closet. Even outlets — a fav trick of one Red Team I know is a fake outlet cover that hides a mic.
Rioters were inside the capitol long enough to re-flash the firmware on any device with writeable firmware – which these days is almost everything. Anything with a mic or camera probably needs to be tossed.

So much this. A physical breach is a nightmare scenario for infosec.

On the off-chance that any of my followers are involved in this — I do have some experience in scenarios like this and would be happy to help. If I can be of assistance hit me up. https://t.co/DzTxUWZunR

— jacobian (@jacobian) January 7, 2021

Platforms Must Pay for Their Role in the Insurrection
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have spent years fomenting and enabling yesterday’s violence at the Capitol. Policymakers need to do something about it.
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/ <https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/

Post-Riot, the Capitol Hill IT Staff Faces a Security Mess
Wednesday’s insurrection could have exposed congressional data and devices in ways that have yet to be appreciated.
https://www.wired.com/story/capitol-riot-security-congress-trump-mob-clean-up/

FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave up on his legally dicey attempt to ‘clarify’ internet law
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/7/22219677/fcc-ajit-pai-section-230-its-over

SolarWinds Taps Firm Started by Ex-CISA Chief Chris Krebs, Former Facebook CSO Alex Stamos
https://www.securityweek.com/solarwinds-taps-firm-launched-cisa-chief-chris-krebs-former-facebook-cso-alex-stamos

Hackers can clone Google Titan 2FA keys using a side channel in NXP chips
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/hackers-can-clone-google-titan-2fa-keys-using-a-side-channel-in-nxp-chips/

A Game Livestreaming Site Has Become an Extremist Haven
https://www.wired.com/story/dlive-livestreaming-site-extremist-haven/

Victory at the High Court against the government’s use of ‘general warrants’
https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/4358/victory-high-court-against-governments-use-general-warrants
In a major victory for the rule of law, the UK High Court has ruled that the security and intelligence services can no longer rely on ‘general warrants’, which until today could be used to interfere with property, including computers, of thousands or even millions of people based on a single warrant.
Key points
• A major High Court ruling today re-asserts 250-year-old aversion of the common law to the use of ‘general warrants’.
• The ruling means the intelligence agencies can no longer rely on ‘general warrants’ for certain forms of property interference, including hacking.
• In the digital age, where a general warrant could easily enable spying on hundreds, thousands or even millions of people, this is a major victory.

MORE SECURITY

‘Going Dark?’: Cops Grab Vehicle Data To Identify A Murder Suspect
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210102/11101245982/going-dark-cops-grab-vehicle-data-to-identify-murder-suspect.shtml
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 they’ve got as much at stake. The FBI can’t 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.

Pentagon Establishes Program Increasing Contractor Access to Classified Information
The department expects 20 to 30 corporations to join the group, a spokesman said.
https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2021/01/pentagon-establishes-program-increasing-contractor-access-classified-information/171217/

Now It Can Be Told: How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/now-it-can-be-told-how-neil-sheehan-got-the-pentagon-papers.html
It was a story he had chosen not to tell — until 2015, when he sat for a four-hour interview, promised that this account would not be published while he was alive.

Encrypted Messaging App Signal Sees Surge in Popularity Following WhatsApp Privacy Policy Update
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/08/messaging-app-signal-sees-surge-signups/

Is Graphic Design the C.I.A.’s Passion?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/style/cia-rebrand.html

Nissan source code leaked online after Git repo misconfiguration
Nissan was allegedly running a Bitbucket Git server with the default credentials of admin/admin.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/nissan-source-code-leaked-online-after-git-repo-misconfiguration/

After Mnuchin Demanded that Fed Chair Powell Return Hundreds of Billions from
Its Emergency Lending Facilities, Fed Sends Back Just $41.3 Billion
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/after-mnuchin-demanded-that-fed-chair-powell-return-hundreds-of-billions-from-its-emergency-lending-facilities-fed-sends-back-just-41-3-billion/
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 8, 2021 ~
Fed Chair Jerome Powell (left) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
We have become convinced that the allocation of $454 billion under the CARES
Act stimulus legislation to cover any losses incurred in the Fed’s emergency
bailout programs was a dog and pony show created by U.S. Treasury […]

EDUCATION

Republican Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos biggest DRUMPF SUPPORTER QUIT effective January 8, 2021

On December 27, President Trump signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, making appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021, and providing COVID-19 relief funding (Secretary DeVos’ statement).
In the $1.4 trillion omnibus funding agreement is $73.5 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Education, an increase of $785 million over the Fiscal Year 2020 level.  Among the highlights: $16.5 billion for Title I grants to school districts (+$227 million), $12.9 billion for special education grants to states (+$173 million), $1.3 billion for career and technical education state grants (+$52 million), and an increase in the maximum Pell Grant by $150, to $6,495, for the 2021-22 academic year.
In the $900 billion COVID-19 relief package is $54.3 billion for K-12 schools (see below), $22.7 billion for higher education (including $1.7 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities [HBCUs], Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and tribal colleges), and $4.05 billion for the nation’s governors to spend on education priorities (including $2.75 billion set aside for private schools).  Other federal agencies will administer the package’s $10 billion for child care and $7 billion for broadband.
The legislation also includes a bipartisan deal to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form, end a 26-year ban on providing Pell Grants to incarcerated students, and forgive nearly $1.3 billion in federal loans to HBCUs.  And, it extends the amount of time undergraduate students can go to school without accruing interest on their need-based federal student loans.

This week, Secretary DeVos announced the availability of $54.3 billion in emergency funding through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fundto support reopening schools, facilitate continuity of learning, and measure and address the significant learning loss caused by a lack of in-person educational opportunities. The public can track how states, districts, and institutions of higher education are using the CARES Act’s Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) monies through the ESF Transparency Portal.

Please join the Department on January 14, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, for a forum on the state of student learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and tools that support student learning now.  Institute for Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider will moderate a discussion with national leaders in the research field, Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) and NWEA, as they review findings on national learning loss.  Then, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD) Assistant Secretary Jim Blew will moderate a discussion on the power of individualized learning platforms, with a couple of examples for how to approach personalized learning.  Register today for the access link.

HEALTH

“Shkreli Award” goes to Moderna for “blatantly greedy” COVID vaccine prices https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/moderna-shamed-with-shkreli-award-over-high-covid-vaccine-prices/

PROUD OF PFIZER