ECP NetHappenings Newsletter 12-28-2021

Educational CyberPlayGround NetHappenings Newsletter

Governance

Rep. Cory Bush proposes observing the 1st anniversary of #January6th by passing a resolution calling for the expulsion of GOP members involved. Saying “..those who participated must be removed.” !!!!
#14thAmendmentSection3

Merrick Garland Sucks
@clairecmc getting straight to the point — “That’s where Merrick Garland is either going to rise to the occasion or go down in infamy as one of the worst attorney generals in this country’s history.”

Charlie Miller on Twitter: “This seems like an impossible task to me. The director of the NSA makes 197k a year (with no equity). Glassdoor says the AVERAGE appsec engineer at facebook makes 195k. How can you recruit elite talent in that market?”

% who say within their community, the pandemic has… via Pew

driven people apart: 47%
not made much difference: 39%
brought people together: 13%

Unite for Colorado bankrolled almost every major GOP effort last year

The rise and fall of rationality After the year 1850, the use of words associated with fact-based (vs. emotional) arguments rose steadily in books and the @nytimes But the pattern reversed in the 1980s, and emotion-based arguments accelerated around 2007.

The U.S. has spent 100s of millions of $s on research aimed at predicting disease outbreaks. I wanted to know whether the hunting & sequencing of dangerous unknown viruses, funded in an effort to prevent a pandemic, could instead cause one.

 Education

Public Broadband Internet Isn’t a Luxury — It’s a Necessity
Everybody needs high-speed internet. But private corporations will never provide it. The solution: treat internet infrastructure as a public utility, funded by the public and built by union workers.

In Pennsylvania, A Lawsuit Could Make Historic Changes To School Funding The end result has been a state with one of the worst funding gaps between wealthy and poor school districts. “The districts that need the most get the least.” If the plaintiffs achieve their goal to have the court “declare the current school funding system unconstitutional and order the defendants to create and maintain a school funding system that enables all students to meet standards,” that’s a change that cannot be implemented over night. But it would represent a major shift for school funding in Pennsylvania and a lifeline to some of the Commonwealth’s struggling districts.

Merry Everything, dammit! Movie Reviews
Content Bits: Motherland: Fort Salem, American Sicario, Apex, Zeros and Ones

On the first day of Christmas my malware gave to me share widely with security friends
Just for the record, when we recorded this “12 Days of Malware,” CVE-2021-44228 had not been disclosed yet.

Kills & Targets

A UAE agency put Pegasus spyware on phone of Jamal Khashoggi’s wife months before his murder, new forensics show. The new analysis challenges NSO claims that the murdered journalist’s wife, Hanan Elatr, ‘was not a target’

The conservative urge to be a victim: Why right-wing victimhood is spreading so fast

For journalists hesitant to speak up against the prosecution of Julian Assange, please watch this clip by @mehdirhasan on the grave press freedom dangers his case presents for ALL reporters.
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1470218210268094464

The secret Uganda deal that has brought NSO to the brink of collapse
and
https://www.ft.com/content/319e691a-9db1-46e6-b7ea-c899715756b4

Money

All Sound Recordings Prior to 1923 Will Enter the US Public Domain in 2022

“The NFT Bay” Claims to Share Multi-Terabyte Archive of ‘Pirated’ NFTs *

@maxkeiser ETH, NFT’s, all shitcoins – are scams and only good for money laundering and stealing people’s #BTC

The Future Is Not Only Useless, It’s Expensive

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photo

of rush to retrieve gold from

Shanghai bank on eve of the

communist takeover in 1948

 

Bitcoin can hit $333K ‘parabolically’ if this BTC price fractal plays out

Falling Further Back – Statement on Chair Gensler’s Regulatory Agenda

Tiffany Hayden: As I’ve learned from @rohangrey, solvency isn’t what protects bank deposits, deposit insurance is.
Even if the FDIC goes bust, the federal gov is legally required to honor the FDIC’s obligations to depositors. Being backed by public authority is the guarantee that matters. $USDT

Top US regulators are calling for urgent legislation on stablecoins, proposing they should become “insured depository institutions” (read: banks), that wallets should get federal oversight and affiliation with commercial entities should be limited.

MIT DCI Collaborating With the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to Build a Hypothetical Digital Currency

Are Governments PRINTING MONEY to adopt Bitcoin?
0:00 Political Reactions to Bitcoin and the Bond Market
01:40 Nation States buying Bitcoin
03:30 Buying Bitcoin and Issue Currency to Buy More
05:00 Are Banks and Countries the Enemy of Bitcoin?
06:15 Predicting the Future of Bitcoin
09:00 Bitcoin is the winning Strategy

Richest 1% Took 38% of New Global Wealth Since 1995. The Bottom Half Got Just 2%

Brazil considering zero tax on renewable Bitcoin mining

A new database of banking-crisis interventions since the 13th century covers 1,886 interventions in 20 categories across 138 countries.
Banking-Crisis Interventions, 1257-2019
Andrew Metrick & Paul Schmelzing
https://www.nber.org/papers/w29281

“Ribbit Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Fortress, Draper Dragon could have invested in @telegram’s TON blockchain
MORE about the Perkins Family: COLONEL THOMAS HANDASYD PERKINS JR. a partner of Baring Brothers in London “Old Shipping Days in Boston” https://RichAsHell.com

11/28/19 Deutsche Bank exec who signed off on Trump loans commits suicide at age 55
Want to know how we got here and who is responsible? Study the 2000 presidential election, including the manufactured Brooks Brothers riot orchestrated by Roger Stone & others who have continued to undermine American democracy. by Jennifer Cohn

Suckers List
This is what companies like Chainalysis are doing all in the phoney name of “compliance.”
“We will data mine your customers financial records and you can claim it’s because the government made you do it because of Silk Road.”
How your financial data can & will be used against you. A rare glimpse into an insurance’s “personalized pricing” algo modeled by how much people (big spenders) are willing to pay before they switch insurance companies.

VCs fund apps for their profit not what would be best for people or a civil society. A16Zs investment record speaks for itself. #facebook #coinbase

 

ECP NetHappenings Newsletter 12-12-2020 Job Money Science K12Education

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!!!!!!!!!!!! Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit!!!!!!!!!!

Electoral College vote will secure Biden presidency

Rethuglicans can’t cancel the Electoral College

@USChamber @LEGALREFORM @RepublicanAGs and
LINDSEY GRAHAM ARE all #neoconfederate #treasonweasels
Call them at 202-463-5724 #democracy comes first.

Lawmakers Who Backed Texas should not be seated in the house 
In 1861, 11 senators and 3 representatives were expelled for supporting the Confederacy and not acknowledging Lincoln’s legitimate election.

Twitter has put new restrictions on@realDonaldTrump It is now not only labeling his false claims but it is making it impossible to like or comment on two he just posted. It is a new level of shutting down this monster.

Blue states send more tax dollars to Washington than they get back. Red states get back more than they contribute. So if red states want to secede — as the Texas GOP chairman suggests — blue states will be able to keep our money. We’ll be far better off financially.

It’s pretty clear Trump’s team is going to keep filing lawsuits. As long as they’re filing lawsuits, Trump can raise hundreds of millions of dollars for them that actually go to his political group that can then spend the money at his properties. It was a grift all along.

 

The Biden White House will have a private contractor provide “disinfectant misting services” to clear the air of lingering droplets after Trump moves out and before Biden moves in.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/09/biden-covid-safety-transition-444040

JOB: Senior Cyber Threat Hunter

I’m looking for a motivated individual to join my team as a Sr Cyber Threat Hunter who will be responsible for identifying advanced adversary activity! Come help protect a company on the frontlines of creating breakthroughs that change patients’ lives!
https://pfizer.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PfizerCareers/job/United-States—Pennsylvania—Collegeville/Senior-Cyber-Threat-Hunter_4801101-1

MONEY

Mission Creep or Creepy Mission: The New York Fed’s Trading Desk Has
Ballooned to $6.59 Trillion Today from $576 Billion in 2008
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/12/mission-creep-or-creepy-mission-the-new-york-feds-trading-desk-has-ballooned-to-6-59-trillion-today-from-576-billion-in-2008/

While many are questioning Bitcoin’s foundations, perhaps even more importantly, Bitcoin is questioning the foundations of the central banks.
https://twitter.com/BlockBytch_/status/1337816189930770441

New Research Shows ‘Pandemic Profits’ of Billionaires Could Fully Fund $3,000 Stimulus Checks for Every Person in US 

GOP Admits That Handing Out Free Money Creates Jobs

CRYPTO

Insurer MassMutual scoops up $100 million worth of Bitcoin,
Billionaire Mike Novogratz highlighted the insurer’s Bitcoin purchase as the most important news in the crypto space in 2020. The investment represents 0.04% of MassMutual’s $235 billion general investment account.

SCIENCE

Man frozen to death after Google Maps wrong turn. “A teenager froze to death in brutal -50C weather after his sat nav told him to take a wrong turn on Russia’s notorious Road of Bones. The Google Maps instructions sent him on a disused shortcut across the world’s coldest inhabited region, according to reports.”

Chemicals to Avoid: Groundbreaking Database of Illnesses from Pesticide Exposure Launched. “Beyond Pesticides’ relational Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database further serves the purpose of demonstrating how pervasive pesticides exposure and how exposure can impact human health with numerous adverse health outcomes. Those exposed to pesticides do not only develop one symptom or disease, but can develop multiple, interconnected diseases. Studies find that pesticide exposure can cause oxidative stress leading to various illnesses, including neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, or oncological diseases.”

K12 EDUCATION

U.S. Schools Are Buying Phone-Hacking Tech That the FBI Used to Investigate Terrorists
In May 2016, a student enrolled in a high-school in Shelbyville, Texas, consented to having his phone searched by one of the district’s school resource officers. Looking for evidence of a romantic relationship between the student and a teacher, the officer plugged the phone into a Cellebrite UFED to recover deleted messages from the phone. According to the arrest affidavit, investigators discovered the student and teacher frequently messaged each other, “I love you.” Two days later, the teacher was booked into the county jail for sexual assault of a child.
The Cellebrite used to gather evidence in that case was owned and operated by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. But these invasive phone-cracking tools are not only being purchased by police departments. Public documents reviewed by Gizmodo indicate that school districts have been quietly purchasing these surveillance tools of their own for years.
In March 2020, the North East Independent School District, a largely Hispanic district north of San Antonio, wrote a check to Cellebrite for $6,695 for “General Supplies.” In May, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD near Houston, Texas, paid Oxygen Forensics Inc., another mobile device forensics firm, $2,899. Not far away, majority-white Conroe ISD wrote a check to Susteen Inc., the manufacturer of the similar Secure View system, for $995 in September 2016.
Gizmodo has reviewed similar accounting documents from eight school districts, seven of which are in Texas, showing that administrators paid as much $11,582 for the controversial surveillance technology. Known as mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs), this type of tech is able to siphon text messages, photos, and application data from student’s devices. Together, the districts encompass hundreds of schools, potentially exposing hundreds of thousands of students to invasive cell phone searches. < – >
https://gizmodo.com/u-s-schools-are-buying-phone-hacking-tech-that-the-fbi-1845862393

Senate overwhelmingly advances defense bill that will rename Confederate bases, squashing Trump’s chances of a veto

Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. NetHappenings 12-8-2020

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HOW IT STARTED | HOW’S IT GOING

HOW IT STARTED
“A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C 

HOW IT’S GOING
The Modern World Has Finally Become Too Complex for Any of Us to Understand | by Tim Maughan

Election

Russian State-Sponsored Actors Exploiting Vulnerability in VMware® Workspace ONE Access Using Compromised Credentials

How a suspected Chinese spy gained access to California politics https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html

When we lose an election Republicans tell us to “get over it”. When they lose an election they accuse everyone of cheating, call for investigations, beheadings, martial law, civil war, whine about it on Fox News, bring law suits, & take it all the way to the supreme court.

#IMPOTUS a quadrillion to the fourth power is the Biggest incumbent Loser of the Presidency.

Russian Media Wants Moscow to Grant Asylum to Trump 

Russian media and lawmakers are concerned about the future of the Kremlin’s favorite U.S. president.

Unsanitized: The Dealmakers Don’t Want to Make a Deal

Mitch McConnell keeps dodging and obfuscating. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for December 9, 2020.
https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-dealmakers-dont-want-to-make-deal-stimulus-liability/

GOP lawyer resigns over treatment of Florida data analyst
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2020/12/08/gop-lawyer-resigns-over-treatment-of-florida-data-analyst/

Fired Data Scientist Rebekah Jones Raises $100K After FDLE Raid https://www.wlrn.org/news/2020-12-08/fired-data-scientist-rebekah-jones-raises-100k-after-fdle-raid

HEALTH

@guelphgirlchris
So my Proud Boys brother refuses to take the COVID vaccine because “Bill Gates is funding it and he is having micro chips put in the vaccine so he could track our movements.”

Small Data, Big Implications
What we can learn from the latest indoor dining study

Anti-Coronavirus Vaccine Movement Grows, Fueled By Online Misinformation, Conspiracies
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/12/08/anti-vaccine-misinformation

Twitter billionaire Jack Dorsey gives U.S. mayors $15M to fund basic income
https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities/529316-twitter-billionaire-jack-dorsey-gives-us-mayors-15

Instead of a colonoscopy, a new screen tests poop for colorectal cancer-related bacteria https://massivesci.com/articles/microbes-test-colorectal-cancer-fit-p-micra-poop/

Mellissa Carone says she will not quarantine, despite sitting next to Giuliani for 30 minutes without masks, and despite health officials in Ingham County calling on anyone in contact with Giuliani in close range for more than 15 minutes to do so.

MONEY

Feds, states sue Facebook over alleged antitrust violations, laying groundwork for possible breakup

The antitrust lawsuits were announced by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“It’s really critically important that we block this predatory acquisition of companies and that we restore confidence to the market,” James said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit.
https://tucson.com/news/national/feds-states-sue-facebook-over-alleged-antitrust-violations-laying-groundwork-for-possible-breakup/article_1c00c9c3-2c04-5e72-91d2-078bdd89247e.html

Congress should offer all WFH workers home-office deduction on their taxes

Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor
CAUSE they defund the IRS and the layers that go after the 1%

Tom Malinowski @Malinowski
Diplomat, father, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Congressman representing New Jersey’s 7th district.
“Tonight we passed a defense bill, by a veto-proof margin, that bans the registration of anonymous shell companies in the U.S., so criminals and kleptocrats can’t hide their illicit cash here, and to give President-elect Biden a potent tool to fight corruption at home and abroad.”

 

BITCOIN

Even the mainstream economists at the Fed Phily & their collaborators recognise central bank digital currency – accounts at the central bank for the public, competing directly with banks who have been providing digital currency so far – will kill the banks
https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/payment-systems/central-bank-digital-currency

From Bankless to Launching Our Own Banks – The Evolution of Crypto Regulations with Hailey Lennon
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-bankless-to-launching-our-own-banks-evolution/id1535260461

Kraken Becomes First Crypto Exchange to Charter a US Bank
On Wednesday, the Wyoming Banking Board voted to approve the San Francisco-based crypto exchange’s application for a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter.

NOW You can have a bitcoin bank account.

Our mission is to bring crypto to everyone. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell explains it all in our video series: Crypto 101
https://www.kraken.com/
Kraken is now the first SPDI bank in Wyoming. According to the Wyoming Division of Banking’s general counsel, Chris Land, Kraken will also be the first newly chartered (de novo) bank in the state since 2006.
“By becoming a bank we get direct access to federal payments infrastructure, and we can more seamlessly integrate banking and funding options for customers,” said David Kinitsky, a managing director at Kraken and the CEO of the newly formed Kraken Financial. (Kinitsky has run Grayscale Investments, was the first digital assets hire at Fidelity and was most recently head of business development at payments startup Circle.)
https://www.coindesk.com/kraken-crypto-exchange-secures-bank-charter-under-wyoming-law

Why it’s still very difficult for an institution to own bitcoin.
If you don’t have firsthand experience with how traditional financial
institutions (pensions, corporate treasuries etc) administratively permission the …