Monday, October 10, 2011

If the USA sells advanced weaponry to Pakistan they can count on it being assessed by China. Crashing them allows for exploitation as well.


I really think the Neocons in Congress need to stop war mongering over Taiwan.  It is a one China policy.  The sooner the USA lives up to its policy the sooner the Chinese will stop being paranoid about every aspect of USA technology.

Computers Controlling Military Drones Reportedly Infected with Virus (click title to entry - thank you)

 Oct 7, 2011 3:51 PM

The computers used to control Predator and Raptor drones used in Afghanistan and other war zones have been reportedly infected by a virus that captures the keystrokes of the pilots operating the unmanned aircraft.
Although detected two weeks ago by the military's network security systems, the military has been unable to purge its computers of the apparent keyboard logger, Noah Shactman reported Friday in Wired's Danger Room blog.
“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” a source familiar with the network infection told Shactman. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know."
According to the report, the virus hasn't prevented pilots stationed at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada--where the drone control center is located--from completing their missions. Nor has any classified information been lost or sent to an outside source, Wired reported….

Chinese hackers spread virus using replica websites (click here)

August 6, 2011
New Delhi: Chinese hackers may be using websites alike to those of 19 high courts in the country to spread computer virus which can renovate the user’s system into a virtual zombie, a security expert has claimed.
Former naval officer Commander Mukesh Saini, who is a cyber security consultant, brought the despicable designs of these alleged hackers to the notice of Cybercrime wing of the CBI lately, which is looking into it....


China To Use Computer Viruses As Cyberwarfare First Strike (click here)

The Defense Department reports that the People's Liberation Army is moving beyond traditional battlefields and into cyberspace.

By
 Sharon Gaudin InformationWeek
May 29, 2007 04:08 PM
The People's Liberation Army in China is building up its cyberwarfare capabilities, even creating malware that could attack enemy computer systems in first-strike attacks, according to a report from the Department of Defense.
The PLA, which is the largest standing army in the world, has established information warfare units geared to developing viruses that can attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Defense Department reported. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 mandates that the secretary of defense make an annual report to Congress on the current and future military strategy of the People's Republic of China….



VIRUS ATTACK / Malware a Vicious Visitor

New virus is smart, aggressive and blocks antivirus protection at will

February 15, 2008|By Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://articles.sfgate.com/images/pixel.gif
An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.
"It is a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence," said Brian Grayek, who heads product development at Computer Associates, a security vendor that analyzed the Trojan Horse….

General Atomics Wins Approval to Sell First Predator Drones in Middle East (click here)

By Gopal Ratnam - Jul 20, 2010 2:53 PM ET

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. said it won U.S. approval for an export version of the Predator drone, clearing the way for the first sales of the unmanned aircraft in the Middle East.
“There’s interest from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates,” Frank Pace, president of the aircraft systems group at the closely held company, said today in an interview at the Farnborough Air Show near London.
General Atomics recently received U.S. State Department approval to offer an unarmed Predator model to countries beyond the NATO bloc, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Pace said. That would allow sales in the Middle East and elsewhere to governments previously ineligible to buy the planes, he said….

Neal Ungerleider
Falafel Mafia

Jul. 20 2010 - 2:13 pm

In the boring-but-important department, the US government has approved export of a modified version of the unmanned Predator drone to the Middle East and South Asia. First on the list of potential buyers? Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Prior to this, sale of Predators was approved only to the NATO bloc, Japan, Australia and New Zealand….
…The non-NATO Predators will differ from the full-functionality versions in several significant ways. Most importantly, they will lack the ability to carry missiles and will be crippled to perform surveillance and reconnaissance missions only.
Pakistan is currently embroiled in an ongoing insurgency against local Islamists while Saudi Arabia is widely suspected of involvement in the ongoing Zaidi insurgency in Yemen. 
Drone aircrafts are in wide use throughout the Middle East, with both home-grown and foreign-purchased systems a common feature of all the region’s air forces. Turkey unveiled one of their own just last week, intended for the use in the Kurdish insurgency….
BY 
  SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani troops battled Taliban extremists Sunday morning to win control of the remnants of a CIA UAV that crashed in the nation’s borderlands, according to Pakistani security officials.
The cause of the crash of the unmanned Predator UAV, among the drones the CIA uses to fire missiles at Taliban and al-Qaida hide-outs in the rocky region bordering Afghanistan, remained in dispute hours after it was downed in Zangarha village in South Waziristan….

Remember the warm welcome by Pakistan of the Chinese?


May 5, 2011
By Bill Sweetman
A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1….


You can dress them up, give them hot trucks, but, they just can't be trusted with the prison population.


An Afghan police vehicle leaves the police station compound for a routine patrol around the city in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008. Suicide bombings and ambushes killed more than 900 Afghan police in 2008.
The USA has seen the slaughter of police officers at a lunch counter as well.  Not 20 at a time, but, I believe the number was four.


KANDAHAR, (click here) Afghanistan -- Taliban militants ambushed a group of police while they were eating lunch in remote southern Afghanistan, killing 20 and fatally shooting the mother of one as she pleaded unsuccessfully for her son's life, an official said Thursday...


This type of treatment of prisoners is NOT going to appeal to the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan.  It will escalate the opposition and empower the Taliban.  This is what the USA has trained in Afghanistan?  


Really?


I can understand how the new police forces are seeking relief from being the icon of hate by the Taliban, but, the citizens receive enough brutality from the Taliban, they don't have to believe they are simply finding 'the same thing' but now in uniform of the Afghan government.


Questions?  I am not surprised there are prison breaks and a sincere lack of trust in the government.  This has to stop.  NOW !  This has become a self fulfilling prophesy.



U.N. Finds ‘Systematic’ Torture in Afghanistan (click here)





continued....

A great American died last Wednesday. He knew the definition of struggle.


The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, (click title to entry - thank you) a civil rights firebrand known as "the Wild Man from Birmingham," died Wednesday at age 89. His confrontational tactics baited White leadership there into violent attacks against marchers that were televised worldwide, helping the civil rights movement to become a global phenomenon.


COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS


The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth: Fearlessness personified

Written by Fcadmin | 06 October 2011


BIRMINGHAM, ALA. – For years, the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth put his body on the line in the struggle against racial segregation.
On Christmas night 1956, 16 sticks of dynamite were detonated outside Shuttlesworth’s bedroom as he slept with his family in the Bethel Baptist Church parsonage in Birmingham, Ala. – then known as "Bombingham" because of the frequency of explosions targeting civil rights activists.

No one was injured, although shards of glass and wood pierced Shuttlesworth’s coat and hat left hanging on a hook. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s home in Montgomery, Ala. had been bombed months earlier. King and his family also survived the bombing.)…

I am impressed by "The Occupy Wall Street" movement.

Not because they have received attention from the Democrats in the House, but, because the people involved are so wonderful.


I was watching the live streaming of a General Assembly with their Human Microphone.  These people are intelligent, seek to organize and embrace 'working groups' such as culture, medicine, legal council,  sanitation, inclusiveness and on and on.  I could not believe the depth of their commitment to each other and the purpose of their meeting and demonstration.  They are not only impressive, but, they speak eons about the quality of citizen we have in the USA.  Where government as registered complaints about the longevity of their marches and demonstrations, they have reacted with concern for those complaints and compassion for each other.  I've very proud of them, but, then quality people are easy to be proud of.


I found this sign to be impressive.  I believe their 'signage' as a method of speech is more indicative of their belief systems and complaints.  I don't see signs with horrific images or false statements.  Other activists in the nation cannot say that.  These people are not interested in 'victimization' as they have been victimized and would not wish it on anyone.  They want answers, they want solutions and they want their country free of the oppressive nature that wealth has brought to here within our borders.


The sign is correct.  I feel very sad when I hear even people considered to be left of center or the left wing of the political USA state that $250,000 is not wealthy.  It is.  It is very wealthy.  A person or couple of the same household making $250,ooo per year will have an accumulated income of $1 million US in four years.  That isn't wealth?  I'd like to know what you call it?


Any one of the members of this national coalition would give anything to be making $250,000 per year, but, I sincerely don't believe they would deny it was wealth.  When people DENY that $250,000 per year income is not wealth, they have no clue what it is too be poor or the working class in the USA.  Try putting two wonderful sons through college on $60,000 per year.  That is what I did.  Working sometimes two jobs I raised to wonderful boys into men that I am very proud of today.  They are both responsible with productive lives and stable relationships, one of my sons with children.  They are okay.  They don't make $250.000 per year and have student loans to pay, but, those loans did cover their education, I DID.  The loans helped, but, they could not have managed without my help.  It was a sacrifice and anyone that wants to say $60,000 per year is a good income has another thing coming.


I was lucky.  I saw the handwriting on the wall when they were very young and entered a profession that I knew would sustain through any recession.  I was correct.  I worked continuously and I was always in demand.  I had excellent benefits when I first began my career, but, I also saw them change to take a larger and larger chuck of my salary year after year.  And then, today, to have Governors state they oppose unions and strikes.  Well, when your pay rate continues to rise but your take home pay declines because the cost of benefits goes up; it is hideous to state a unionized strike is not in order.  


The American Worker is reflected in the quality of person in this national community.  They are intelligence and they know exactly what they are up against in life.  No one is going to change their understanding of their reality, because, not different than my sons they know the sacrifices of the working class as they watched their parents support and love them over the past decade.  They know all too well what they want for their children including a planet respected for the live it puts forth. 


They should be proud of themselves and not worry about 'images' to a camera.  They need to be themselves, be the wonderful selves they are and go forward with confidence knowing the depth of their understanding, passion and determination.  They need to hold their heads high and realize the 'nay sayers' are nearly the people they have grown to become.  


I am impressed.  I am impressed with every last one of them.


...Does this mean (click title to entry - thank you)  that the Democratic embrace should be rejected? Not necessarily. Occupy Wall Street could, of course, open up political space for Democrats to address unemployment, income inequality, criminality by banks, the overwhelming influence of corporate money in politics and so on. But it’s worth keeping in mind that most if not all of these politicians have been cozy with Wall Street for years; so there are grounds for suspicion....