Text Message 'Miscommunication' Puts Three New Jersey Schools On Lockdown

from the all-that's-missing-is-the-ONLY-detail-that-matters dept

Today's dose of paranoia and confusion comes to us courtesy of RyanNerd. We've seen schools react badly to perceived threats before, but the lack of a single crucial detail makes it impossible to determine whether this incident is one of those cases. What we do know is that three New Jersey schools were locked down and swarmed by police officers as the result of a single text from a student to a parent.

According to the New York Daily News, the culprit was autocorrect.

A panicked mom called local police and sparked a three-hour lock down of South Plainfield High School in New Jersey, officials told The Daily News.

"It created a heck of a mess," Schools Superintedent Stephen Genco told The Daily News.

Genco did not disclose exactly what the text message said, but said it involved the kid's phone not working.

"Auto correct created a situation where it looked like it was something totally different," he said.

For three hours, students were kept in their classrooms while buildings, backpacks and lockers were searched by law enforcement. In at least one school, students were searched as well.

The district issued an all-clear at 1:30pm, three hours after the panic began. A statement was issued by the district, which failed to address the content of the text message, but gave a lot of credit to the district's lockdown drills.

As you know, today there was an incident that caused authorities to put the HS , Middle School and Grant into a lockdown situation. The police have concluded their investigation and have determined that there was no threat. Currently the police are concluding their procedures and have authorized the reopening of all three buildings. All procedures were followed and it was clear that the practice drills we hold in each of our schools assisted in readying the students and staff for this incident. Thank you for your patience and support.

Even the Borough of South Plainfield felt moved to issue a statement via its Facebook page.

South Plainfield High School, Middle School and Grant School were all on lockdown earlier today. There was a miscommunication from a student to parent that caused a call into the Borough's 911 center. Police were required to investigate and initiate lockdown procedures. It was a miscommunication. The reports of arrests are totally false. everyone is safe.

Throughout all this communication, everyone involved has taken great care to withhold the content of the text that kicked off the three-school lockdown.

Here's what can be ascertained from the smattering of facts dispersed across several articles.

1. A text was sent by a student to a parent.
2. This text was misinterpreted by the parent, either due to the student's own error or the unforced error of autocorrect.
3. The student's parent contacted the local police.
4. Police swarmed three schools, which were all placed on lockdown for three hours.
5. Nothing was discovered, no arrests were made and the all-clear was sounded.

One report contains this speculative statement from district superintendent Stephen Genco.

Genco said there were “several rumors,” including that someone was bringing a gun to the high school’s pep rally Friday.

So, why is this text being withheld? The school could make the argument that the involvement of a minor raises privacy issues and thus, the text's content must be withheld. But this conspicuous omission hardly seems to be policy-related. Superintendent Genco never broaches the subject of district policy which is normally the first card played during iffy situations like these. Someone's embarrassed about their reaction. Whether it's the parent, the local PD or the school district remains to be seen. Somehow a text about a malfunctioning phone resulted in a police sweep (with K9 units) and lockdown of three schools, but so far, none of the reassuring voices (school, PD, city officials) have come forward to show the public exactly what mistake was made and how it was interpreted as a potential threat. (Here's how it could have happened...) More questions than answers here, I'm afraid, and that makes it tough to gauge the appropriateness of this response.

Filed Under: miscommunication, new jersey, schools, threats

Every 'Threat' The NSA Spreads FUD About Seems To Be Something The NSA Itself Is Actually Doing

from the i-guess-they-would-know... dept

Nearly a year ago, well before all the Snowden leaks, we had a discussion about how, for all the talk from Keith Alexander about how the US was facing "unprecedented cyberattacks" that might bring about a "cyber Pearl Harbor," in reality, it appeared that the real global threat to computer systems was... the US government itself, via Keith Alexander's "US Cyber Command," which had, by far, the most sophisticated and advanced digital attack unit and wasn't afraid to use it. In fact, the US government seems to think it has incredibly broad powers to attack digitally. Of course, the nature of those attacks have become a lot more clear lately. And, as a part of that, one thing that's becoming clear: every time you hear a scary story about a kind of attack that some foreigners might do, you can pretty much guarantee: the NSA has already done it.

You may recall that, late in 2012, the House Intelligence Committee, led by dishonest NSA defender Rep. Mike Rogers, put out a report claiming that Americans should not use networking equipment made by Huawei, the Chinese networking giant, hinting that the company might be inserting backdoors and spyware into the equipment for the Chinese government. Huawei -- which had actually previously publicly asked the US government to investigate it to prove that such claims were false -- was not at all pleased about this, claiming that the whole thing was libelous and "utterly lacking in substance." A month ago, Huawei suggested that it was going to just ditch the US market because of all of this.

And yet... the recent NSA revelations about its technical capabilities to backdoor various hardware products showed that it's actually the NSA which has backdoors in Huawei's equipment. That doesn't foreclose the possibility that the Chinese have hacked it as well, but it sure looks ridiculous. As the Wired article linked above summarizes: "US to China: We hacked your internet gear we told you not to hack." This certainly plays into the hands of the Chinese, who have long argued that the attack on Huawei by Mike Rogers and friends was really just an attempt to pump up US-based competitors like Cisco (whose products the NSA has also apparently compromised).

And then there's the whole "BIOS" attack thing. You may recall that the big "scoop" in the hilariously lopsided 60 Minutes infomercial for the NSA by John Miller (a counterterrorism official pretending to be a journalist), was that there was some scary foreign threat out there from another country that was going to "infect the BIOS" of every computer on earth and turn them all into bricks. Experts pointed out that the claims were pure gibberish.

Except in that same report about the NSA's technical capabilities came the news that it's the NSA that is installing malware in the BIOS. As Marcy Wheeler notes:

Most fearmongering claims the NSA makes may well be projection about its own activities.

None of this means that others (and the finger is usually pointed at the Chinese) aren't doing the same sorts of things themselves. But it sure does seem pretty hypocritical to go around fearmongering about the things that we, ourselves, are doing.

Filed Under: bios, china, cyberattacks, fud, nsa, threats
Companies: huawei

Weird California Incident Last Year Points To The Real Threat To The Power Grid (Hint: It's Not Cyberattacks)

from the uncommon-common-sense dept

Via Bruce Schneier's blog, we learn of the following intriguing story published in Foreign Policy:

Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the area around the substation. That knocked out some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy. The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. Ten transformers were damaged in one area of the facility, and three transformer banks -- or groups of transformers -- were hit in another, according to a PG&E spokesman.

Oil then leaked from the transformers, causing them to overheat and shut down. However, there were no major power outages, and no long-term damage. The Foreign Policy post gives a good summary of what we do and don't know, and is well-worth reading in full. As Schneier comments:

The article worries that this might be a dry-run to some cyberwar-like attack, but that doesn't make sense. But it's just too complicated and weird to be a prank.

Anyone have any ideas?

Feel free to theorize in the comments about what happened last April. Absent further information, I'd like to focus here on the following perceptive analysis from the article:

At the very least, the attack points to an arguably overlooked physical threat to power facilities at a time when much of the U.S. intelligence community, Congress, and the electrical power industry is focused on the risk of cyber attacks. There has never been a confirmed power outage caused by a cyber attack in the United States. But the Obama administration has sought to promulgate cyber security standards that power facilities could use to minimize the risk of one.

This fixation on "cybersecurity" is something that Techdirt has been pointing out for a while. It seems largely driven by canny defense and security companies hungry for profitable contracts, which are able to take advantage of politicians intimidated by technology and worried about seeming "soft" on "cyberterror." Kudos, then, to Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who seems to have more common sense than most of his colleagues:

A shooter "could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out," Wellinghoff said last month at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg. His proposed defense: A metal sheet that would block the transformer from view. "If you can't see through the fence, you can't figure out where to shoot anymore," Wellinghoff said. Price tag? A "couple hundred bucks." A lot cheaper than the billions the administration has spent in the past four years beefing up cyber security of critical infrastructure in the United States and on government computer networks.

Quite.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: cybersecurity, physical security, power grid, security, threats

Kansas City Cops Tell Man They'll Kill His Dogs And Destroy His Home If Forced To Obtain A Search Warrant

from the i-keep-a-gun-holstered,-but-only-on-the-right-side,-that's-the-cop-side dept

Good news, citizens! You have the right to refuse a warrantless search of your premises. It's a right that's guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. But that right won't protect you from the consequences of your failure to roll over for law enforcement. Nope, the right to not be subjected to a warrantless search can actually be held against you -- not in a court of law, mind you -- but by the police themselves.

Eric Crinnian, an attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, says police came to his door looking for parole violators, and got upset when he refused them permission to tramp through his house and paw through his possessions. In fact, he claims, one cop went so far as to threaten to shoot his dogs if he made them abide by the requirements of the law by getting a search warrant to look through his home.

Here's the direct quote from the news article:

“If we have to get a warrant, we’re going to come back when you’re not expecting it, we’re going to park in front of your house, where all your neighbors can see, we’re gonna bust in your door with a battering ram, we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs [...] and then we’re going to ransack your house looking for these people.”

This sounds suspiciously like a threat (several threats, actually). This is the classic "you can do this the easy way or the hard way" persuasion technique that's been deployed by law enforcement since there's been law enforcement. Even when not spoken out loud, the "or else" always hangs in the air when LEOs "ask nicely" for permission to do things they can't legally do without your consent.

Rarely is this threat spoken with such clarity and detail, however. As both Reason and the Volokh Conspiracy note, the threat delivered by a KCPD officer may not actually be illegal.

John Hamilton, an associate professor of criminal justice administration at Park University and a retired Major with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, told the news station that the officers' threats may not be illegal, though they're inappropriate and it's possible they violate department policy. He also pointed to the matter of appearances, saying that such behavior "makes it tenuous when you appear in front of the court in a case like that."

Not exactly illegal, but not very helpful should this incident result in a lawsuit. In fact, Missouri's laws give police officers leeway to make threats such as these without repercussion, as Reason's J.D. Tucille notes.

Missouri has a statute that defines a "credible threat… against the life of, or a threat to cause physical injury to, or the kidnapping of, the person, the person's family, or the person's household members or domestic animals or livestock" as aggravated stalking and might fit the bill in this situation. However, that law explicitly exempts law enforcement officers "conducting investigations of violation of federal, state, county, or municipal law," which is more than a little disturbing.

In all likelihood, the citizen who exercised his Fourth Amendment rights will be the only one who is punished (in one fashion or another) for the officer's threats. Making these allegations public will decrease the likelihood of the KCPD following through on its offer to tear apart Crinnian's home and shoot his pets. Of course, this could just as easily go the other way. The PD has already promised to retaliate for his refusal to permit an unconstitutional search. It may up its level of retribution in the wake of this public embarrassment.

There's also this to consider. While the officer's words may sound like a threat, what he's saying may not be a threat. It may just be a simple observation of what doing this the "hard way" will entail.

Some people have hypothesized that the police officer was merely describing the normal warrant execution process rather than threatening to retaliate by causing gratuitous property damage. I think it's worth noting that these are not inconsistent. It would not surprise me to learn that the police routinely retaliate against people who make their lives difficult by causing gratuitous damage during the warrant execution process.

No-knock warrants are always more damaging than those announced by a knock on the door. Police use different tactics depending on their perception of the person they're serving the warrant to. People with the power and money to retaliate in court are often handled with more respect (and less collateral damage) than those that are perceived to be powerless (yet somehow more dangerous). Note how an arrest of celebrity is carried out much differently than arrests of millions of nobodies.

"We'll come back with a warrant, but we'll make you wish you had consented earlier." It's almost extortion and yet, it's almost certainly not punishable under Missouri law. Gotta love that Fourth Amendment protection, which grants you the right to turn down a warrantless search, but instead subjects you to a violent, noisy, destructive search of your house once the proper paperwork is secured.

Hopefully, Crinnian's public complaint will either a) force the KCPD to conduct an orderly, non-dog-shooting search of his premises or b) move any judge asked to sign this warrant makes sure the KCPD has dotted every evidentiary "i" and crossed every reasonably suspicious "t." Better yet, let's hope it convinces the PD to drop its apparently errant investigation of Crinnian.

But the underlying message is both terrible and crystal clear. You are protected from illegal searches, but not from petty retaliation conducted under the color of law. The system has checks and balances, but these are essentially meaningless when the balance of power has shifted this far out of whack.

Filed Under: intimidation, kansas city, police, threats, warrants

Another Teen's Facebook 'Threat' Results In Criminal Charges Being Filed

from the this-climate-of-fear-is-corroding-free-speech dept

Another teenager has found himself on the receiving end of criminal charges for "threats" delivered via social media. Venkat Balasubramani at Eric Goldman's blog runs down the details.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, P.T., a 15 year old high school sophomore (in Ohio) posted the following to his Facebook page:

"Kids were shot. Who cares? Dead kids are dead kids. Murder is a good thing.

This is a serious status. I really think murder is a good thing. It doesnt (sic) matter who is getting killed as long as there is killing. I have been saying for years now that there needs to be another mass murder, I have said this too (sic) many people. The fact they were kids just makes me laugh. I'd have done this job myself if I could have.

All forms of life are insignificant. Doesnt (sic) matter if they die today, tomorrow, or in 30 years. They are going to die. I might as well help them out."[emphasis added]

Two things happened in response to this comment. First, Cory, an online acquaintance of P.T.’s, and P.T. exchanged words. Cory said P.T. should watch P.T.’s back; P.T. said he would “shit fury all over [Cory] and [Cory] will drown in it.”

Separately, several parents of students and students who came across the Facebook posts expressed concern to the police and to the principal of Wilmington High School. P.T. was arrested, detained and underwent a psychological assessment. He was also charged with “menacing” (R.C. 2903.21(A)) and “inducing panic” (R.C. 2917.31(A)(3)). The school monitored the situation, and sent out a robocall advising parents that it had the situation under control. Significantly, neither Cory, nor the principal of Wilmington High School stated that either of them viewed P.T.’s statements as a threat (the principal was more equivocal about it).

Before we get into the discussion of the validity of these charges (and other concerns], let's take a look at the entire conversation, as quoted in the court decision.

The conversation between Cory and P.T. [following the statement quoted above] went as follows:

CORY: so [sic] what your [sic] saying is, If [sic] someone just walked up shot your mother, father, siblings right in front of you, Yoou [sic] would just laugh?

P.T.: Yes, I would.

CORY: You might want to watch your back, chances are someone will see this and they will jump your ass

P.T.: What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda [sic], and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla (sic) warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target [sic] I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you'll recognize that last "statement" as being a direct quote of a well-known meme that first appeared a few years back at (where else) 4chan.

The inclusion of this epic and familiar bit of trash talk seems to indicate that P.T.'s original post maybe wasn't quite as serious as he claimed it was. His initial statement may have been nothing more than a particularly horrible form of trolling. (To the extent that it got a small rise out of his online acquaintance, it arguably worked.) Not only that, but Cory stated he never felt threatened by P.T.'s posts.

The court addresses this final, copy-pasted "statement" briefly in its decision ("In response, P.T. posted a lengthy statement stating that he will "shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.") but swiftly moves past that (apparently unaware of its origins) to deal exclusively with P.T.'s initial statement.

P.T.'s argument that he made no direct threat and that his post was "untargeted" ultimately made no difference in the court's interpretation of the statutes he was charged under.

As to the charge of "menacing," the court declared:

The reach of R.C. 2903.22(A) is not so narrow as to be restricted only to conduct constituting an overt threat as P.T. suggests. Rather, the statute proscribes a much broader spectrum of behavior by criminalizing any conduct engaged in by a person knowing that such conduct would cause another to believe the offender will cause the other person, or the other’s family, physical harm. In the present case, P.T. posted on Facebook—knowing that it is a website readily accessible to many individuals living in the Wilmington area— endorsing the events that occurred at Sandy Hook and stating that if he had the means to accomplish such a shooting, he would have "done the job" himself. Although the posts were not made to or about any particular person, it was reasonable to believe that the posts would be viewed and conveyed through Facebook to individuals associated with the Wilmington school district, where P.T. attended school.

The court also added this somewhat dubious rationale for its decision on the "menacing" charge:

P.T.’s conduct must be viewed, according to the court, “within the context of a highly emotional, fearful, and hyper-vigilant climate existing in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting.”

Allowing emotions, fear and hyper-vigilance to guide legal decisions isn't necessarily a good idea. We've seen the damage done when these are used to guide legislation. Applying this to the criminal justice system tends to encourage prosecutorial and judicial behavior more closely aligned with revenge than the pursuit of justice.

P.T. also argued against the charge of "inducing panic," but this was shot down as well:

P.T.’s Facebook posts caused members of the public to contact police, required weekend meetings between the police, Principal Carey, Wilmington school district’s superintendent and the school district’s business manager, led to the school issuing an “all call,” alerting the entire student body to the situation, triggered a police presence at Wilmington High School on the following day of classes, and resulted in several students being absent from school due to their parents’ fear of what might happen.

Surprisingly, considering the hefty bail amounts and lengthy prison sentences others in the same set of circumstances have met with, P.T.'s sentence comes off as rather lenient, especially considering the court allowed "emotions" and "fear" to guide its decision-making.

End result: P.T. is placed on probation, ordered to serve 55 days on an electronic monitoring unit, participate in family counseling, complete community service, and pay costs.

One of the first aspects that must be addressed is the sentencing. In this case, P.T. was sentenced by a juvenile court (sentence upheld by this decision) and was not charged under any terrorism statutes. The investigation consisted of some questioning and a rational decision by the PD and prosecutors to not pursue anything ridiculous like "terroristic threat" charges. It's not that Ohio doesn't have "terroristic threat" laws -- it does*-- it's just that the reaction here was more muted and more reasonable than others we've seen despite the fact that P.T. posted his "threat" on the same day as the Sandy Hook shooting. Others with more time and emotional distance separating the tragedies and the "threats" have met with harsher punishments from courts not admittedly operating in a climate of "emotion and fear."

*[If anything, Ohio's law is too broad -- "It is not a defense to a charge of a violation of this section that the defendant did not have the intent or capability to commit the threatened specified offense or that the threat was not made to a person who was a subject of the threatened specified offense." -- try getting out of that one should a prosecutor decide to bring terroristic threat charges against you.]

Balasubramani questions the impact such a decision will have on free speech (which could also be applied to Cam D'Ambrosio and Justin Carter's cases), especially seeing as the court didn't even raise the issue. (Granted, neither did the defendant.)

The court glosses over the question of whether P.T.'s statement was a "true threat," and the available evidence indicated that it wasn't. The language used by P.T. was clearly conditional. Neither P.T.'s online acquaintance nor the principal viewed it as such. (Cory and P.T. had a separate exchange of words, but the court does not use this as a basis for affirming.) Sure, it's distasteful and even abhorrent speech, but that does not make it unprotected speech…

In any event, the court's refusal to even tackle the First Amendment question is a bummer. Maybe online threat posts are the new "fire in a crowded theater"? Either way, my sense is that there are a growing number of cases involving online postings where courts do not engage in any First Amendment analysis--and online speech is suffering as a result.

This is problematic. The heightened sensitivity in the wake of tragedies tends to result in overreaction. Unfortunately, it seems as though this "sensitivity" will never go away, thanks to the advent and expansion of anti-terrorist laws in the wake of 9/11, which gives prosecutors a new tool to use to punish ill-advised online statements. The uptick in monitoring of students' off-campus speech further exacerbates this charged situation.

By all means, officials can and should investigate perceived threats. But the common response so far has been to detain, charge and lock up teens with faulty brain-to-keyboard filters first and ask questions (or investigate) later. The system isn't working the way it should when these investigations turn up nothing but the prosecutors still feel compelled to pursue felony "terrorist" charges in response to clumsy executions of protected speech.

Filed Under: free speech, menacing, social media, threats

Government Considers Dissatisfaction With US Policies To Be A 'High Threat'

from the looks-like-someone's-going-to-spend-some-time-at-the-Ministry-of-Love! dept

The administration's "Insider Threat" program was discussed here a few weeks ago. Apparently, the government has been running dangerously low on whistleblowers to prosecute and now is seeking help from its employees in identifying "threats" to the government -- some of which may be no more than a cubicle away.

The national "spy on your neighbor" program (See Something, Say Something) has now been internalized by the government, which openly encourages its employees to view their co-workers with suspicion. Leaks = "aiding the enemy," according to official documents and one can't be too careful in this post-Snowden climate of forced transparency.

To that end, the government has introduced a couple of training modules/interactive games aimed at heightening suspicion levels in federal offices. There are two versions: one for the Dept. of Defense and one for regular "federal employees." You score points by following the rules and outing co-workers whose behavior indicates they might up and tear the country a new one by blowing whistles.

According to the interactive brainwasher CyberAwareness Challenge, these are some of the prime indicators that a co-worker is prone to rampant acts of insider threatening.

A security training test created by a Defense Department agency warns federal workers that they should consider the hypothetical Indian-American woman a "high threat" because she frequently visits family abroad, has money troubles and "speaks openly of unhappiness with U.S. foreign policy."

Yes. It's true. An inherently untrustworthy foreigner has made things worse on herself by exercising her First Amendment rights and openly having her vehicle repossessed. A good citizen loves our country's thousands of rules and policies and pays their bills on time -- no exceptions.

And who in their right, non-threatening mind would want to leave the country once, much less several times? Seriously. The hassle at the airports alone would seem to be enough to deter a non-Caucasian from making more than one trip abroad.

While this example may seem stupid at best and borderline racist at worst, a spokesman for the Pentagon defended the program's virtues in a statement to Huffington Post.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said, "DISA was sensitive to any civil liberty concerns that might arise from any portion of the curriculum, which is why it coordinated with 26 federal agencies to ensure the maximum amount of input was received before going live."

"When considering personnel for a position of trust that requires a security clearance, there are many potential indicators that must be considered when evaluating for insider threat concerns," he explained. "The department takes these variables into consideration based on past examples of personnel who engaged in spying or treasonous acts."

Several million people across the federal government have taken the training since it was released, Pickart said, and there has been only one complaint...

Anyone familiar with government work knows that increasing the number of agencies involved has very little bearing on overall quality of output. In fact, it's more frequently noted that the quality is inversely proportionate to the number of bureaucrats involved.

And as for there being only one complaint? Well, holy shit, what did you expect? The program itself makes the none-too-subtle point that complaining about the government is a great way to end up with the word "Snowden" taped surreptitiously to your back by your newly trained co-workers.

Now, if you're truly curious, you can attempt to play the interactive CyberAwareness Challenge. Chrome users are somewhat discouraged from making the attempt. My personal experience boiled down to a lot of load time broken up by occasional "challenges" and questions that had all the depth and nuance of a Dora the Explorer episode.

The challenge level may go up the further you proceed in the game, but I can't offer any insight on that. The load times are so long, it's tough to believe you'll have a chance to round up any "insider threats" before they've boarded the next plane to Moscow. Or retired.

All hyperbole aside, this training program won't do much to find insider threats, who are likely not nearly as easy to identify as the rather spurious list of "indicators" would have federal employees believe. And the last thing the government should be doing is incubating the idea that exposing government wrongdoing is only a step or two removed from actual terrorism. Attempting to weed out "dissent" by turning government employees against each other is only going to foster more of the behavior these agencies are trying to stamp out.

Filed Under: free speech, government, threats, whistleblowers

Former State Dept. Official, Expert On Extremism Says US Terror Alert Is 'Crazy Pants'

from the ridiculous dept

We've already discussed just how bizarre it is that the US's big terror alert and embassy evacuation has already involved revealing details of how the government figured out what Al Qaeda is up to. It appears that plenty of experts in these fields are completely mystified as to the government's actions here, both in their reaction to the threats and then revealing the specific way they found out about it (at the same time they're defending secrecy is needed over their data collection methods).

“It’s crazy pants – you can quote me,” said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on government extremism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.

“We just showed our hand, so now they’re obviously going to change their position on when and where” to attack, said Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who was part of the team that hunted Osama bin Laden for years.

“It’s not completely random, but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?’ ” said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net

But, really, there's a bigger issue here, highlighted by this simple tweet from Cathal Garvey:

The narrative beggars belief. Same month NSA mass surveillance enters public scrutiny, Al Qaida leadership suddenly start emailing plots.

Of course, now it's come out that it wasn't "email" that the US found out about, but a conference call between various Al Qaeda leadership, but that doesn't really change very much. In many ways, it makes the story even more bizarre. We've already heard from Pentagon-friendly reporters claims that the terrorists were changing how they communicate after the Snowden revelations -- and yet suddenly they all jump onto a conference call that the US government can easily monitor? Really?

Filed Under: hype, revelations, terror alert, threats

UK's Ofcom Recognizes That Copyright Can Be A Threat To User Generated Content

from the hopeful-signs dept

One of the central problems of laws that deal with copyright is that they are essentially products of a time when the distinction between creator and audience was clear-cut. The move to digital and the rise of the Internet has changed all that, allowing hundreds of millions of people to become new kinds of creators. They may not write entire symphonies or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but what they lack in scale and intensity they make up for in frequency and spontaneity.

Much of what they work with is pre-existing material, which they either modify lightly or offer various kinds of glosses on. However, traditional copyright does not recognise the validity of these kinds of creativity, and therefore regards most of these activities as illegal. This has led to a terrible disjunct between what huge numbers of people do -- especially those who grew up digital -- and what the law allows.

To its credit, the UK government body Ofcom has recognized that gulf is an important fact that can't be ignored. As part of its remit to promote "the interests of citizens and consumers" and "opportunities to participate", it has commissioned and published a major report about this strange new world of user-generated content (UGC). Here's the summary:

The spread of UGC practice represents a profound shift in the relationship between the media, consumers and technology. The traditional, one-way producer-consumer contract has been complemented with a set of malleable, constantly shifting transactions in which the "end" user is now, potentially, just one node on a production-distribution-consumption cycle. At its best, UGC gives rise to vastly increased social and political participation and more widespread creative practice. But it comes with challenges too: it is profoundly disruptive to content and media incumbents and presents the public with significant dangers in terms of privacy and security.

It rightly points out that UGC has changed dramatically in recent years:

Traditionally, UGC has been a highly engaged activity, with bloggers, musicians, filmmakers, citizen journalists and photographers expending creative effort at levels that might be considered nigh on professional. However, the last five years have seen the rise of a lighter level UGC activity, often termed "social curation" wherein users' engagement with content is more focussed on commenting, judging or collating than actual creation. Although the activity is light, in aggregate it is a massive phenomenon.

In the light of recent events, the following comment about metadata seems prescient:

As users participate in social curation, and indeed, in any online activity, they leave a highly detailed set of data and metadata footprints. While the creation of this data is not generally intended or conscious -- and is only really "content" is the most abstract way -- it is invaluable to businesses, media and potentially to civil society. Indeed, the very "free to use" nature of many platforms is down to the ability of the companies offering the platforms and services to create new business models based on data mining. Of course, when it comes to this kind of data, there remain some abiding and deep concerns about privacy and security.

The report's title is "The Value of User-Generated Content", and its authors seek to tease apart the different kinds of value it provides:

We break down the value of UGC into three key areas: political/social, economic and cultural (entertainment, the arts etc). Economically, UGC is driving innovation in the tech sector and creating new businesses and business models in areas like aggregation, recommendation and curation, and is, more basically, a driver of consumer take-up . In social terms UGC stimulates political participation and mass debate, as well as creates value in areas such as education, healthcare and hyperlocal media. Culturally, UGC drives creative participation, as well provides cultural incumbents with opportunities in areas such as audience engagement, talent spotting and skills development.

That's a very positive attitude to UGC that contrasts sharply with traditional copyright companies that see it as purely parasitic. That level of understanding is carried over into the report's views on the challenges that the world of user-generated content faces, which include:

Security and privacy are potentially compromised by massive online engagement

UGC can spread illegal or harmful content

Restrictive IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) practice can hinder creative engagement

Notice that "IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) practice" is seen as a threat to UGC, rather than the other way around, which is traditionally how things are presented, especially when penalties for infringement are being discussed. That's hugely encouraging, because it suggests that Ofcom and other UK government departments might start seeing UGC as a huge opportunity for creativity, not a threat to it, as it is so often painted.

All-in-all, then, this 70-page report is a valuable contribution to the debate about the role of copyright in the digital age. Let's hope the policy makers in the UK and around the world read it, understand it, and act on it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: copyright, threats, user generated content

The NSA Leaks Put Our 'Methods' At Risk, But Bragging About Monitoring Al Qaeda Emails Doesn't?

from the double-standards dept

Throughout the whole Snowden leaks, one thing we keep hearing from defenders of the NSA's surveillance programs is how this is revealing "sources and methods" that we use to do surveillance on our [classified] enemies. Of course, what he actually revealed was not so much the sources and methods used to spy on enemies of the US, but the method by which the government seems to spy on everyone by scooping up a ton of data that most people expected to be private. But... contrast that to the story we've heard over the past few days concerning the terror alert, and the US pulling people out of embassies and ramping up the fear about an impending attack. Even though no such attack has happened as yet, the NY Times has already revealed details of the email intercepts by the US:

The Obama administration’s decision last week to close nearly two dozen diplomatic missions and issue a worldwide travel alert resulted from intercepted electronic communications in which the head of Al Qaeda in Pakistan ordered the leader of its affiliate in Yemen, the terrorist organization’s most lethal branch, to carry out an attack as early as this past Sunday, according to American officials.

The intercepted conversations last week between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of the global terrorist group, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, revealed one of the most serious plots against American and other Western interests since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, American intelligence officials and lawmakers have said.

So... revealing that we collect data on everyone somehow turns Snowden into a traitor, while having officials in the government tell the NY Times that we directly intercepted emails between Al Qaeda's top leaders is somehow perfectly fine? How does that work?

I don't think anyone thinks it's a bad thing that the feds are spying on Al Qaeda's leaders and their communications. That's to be totally expected. But if you're comparing the two "leaks", it's not difficult to see how the leak revealing exactly which kinds of communications we can see from the folks planning an attack seems a lot more revealing on the "national security" front than anything that Snowden revealed. What he focused on was how those same tools are being used on millions of totally innocent Americans.

And, of course, the skepticism level is high about all of this, because some people feel that these warning and closures are just part of the game to try to justify NSA surveillance. Indeed, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member (and massive NSA apologist) Senator Saxby Chambliss has been using these closures to claim that this is evidence we shouldn't push back on NSA spying:

They are what lead us to have the - or allow us to have the ability to gather this chatter that I referred to. If we did not have these programs, then we simply wouldn't be able to listen in on the bad guys.

Of course, that's hogwash. The programs people are complaining about go way way beyond that. They're not objecting to the ability to "listen in on the bad guys." Glenn Greenwald hit back quickly, explaining why this is completely bogus:

"Nobody has ever questioned or disputed that the U.S. government, like all governments around the world, ought to be eavesdropping and monitoring the conversations of people who pose an actual threat to the United States in terms of plotting terrorist attacks," Greenwald says. Pointing to the recent revelations by leaker Edward Snowden that he has reported on, Greenwald explains, "Here we are in the midst of one of the most intense debates and sustained debates that we’ve had in a very long time in this country over the dangers of excess surveillance, and suddenly, an administration that has spent two years claiming that it has decimated al-Qaeda decides that there is this massive threat that involves the closing of embassies and consulates around the world. ... The controversy is over the fact that they are sweeping up billions and billions of emails and telephone calls every single day from people around the world and in the United States who have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism."

I don't deny that there may be an actual threat and that Al Qaeda and various affiliates really are (or were) planning something major. But just because a group that we already know is trying to launch attacks is planning to launch an attack is, in no way, a justification for collecting the information of everyone.

Filed Under: al qaeda, attacks, leaks, surveillance, threats, us government

Pippa Middleton Sends Legal Threats Over Parody Twitter Account

from the obviously-feels-she-has-reputation-to-burn dept

Like most tragic stories, this one starts with a wedding and ends with legal threats. And like many of these stories, the middle part contains a guide to entertaining and a parodic Twitter account.

Pippa Middleton, whom I'm sure many of you are aware of even if you're not completely aware you're aware [cultural osmosis], is perhaps most famous for walking behind her sister Kate Middleton and holding her train as she prepared to become the Duchess of Cambridge by marrying into the Royal Family. You may still be wondering why she's famous, so here's Google's suggestions for further research. (You'll likely only need the first suggestion.)

Perhaps Pippa Middleton felt she needed to get out from under her married-up sister's shadow or maybe she's always had an urge to create, but whatever the impulse, Middleton cranked out a book full of cooking and entertaining tips entitled "Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Family and Friends."

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. Plenty of people on various tiers of celebrity have written and published books, capitalizing on their fame. The problem was that Middleton's book was aimed at a very niche audience for which her title would be their first book on entertaining and, quite possibly, their first book ever.

Middleton's well-meaning but entirely vapid Celebrate offered the following "tips" to would-be celebrators.

For Hallowe'en, how about pumpkin soup served in a hollowed-out pumpkin?

To stop cakes going stale, she advises storing them in something called "an airtight tin", while hot drinks for picnics should be poured from flasks into "mugs or paper cups".

Elsewhere, she explains the rules of a game of conkers and the correct way to toast marshmallows over a fire, a process that involves using "a long-handled fork" and "flames".

Could it be more basic? Why not try roasting a turkey for Christmas or lighting small candles on a cake to celebrate a birthday? Hey, here's another crazeee idea — what about making pancakes for Pancake Day?

As the reviewer notes, it's the perfect book for someone who's misplaced their recipe for ice. This glossy set of sub-common-sense instructions was soon being parodied by @Pippatips on Twitter. As can clearly be seen by the profile, it's a parody account.


This account was soon dispensing pearls of wisdom on par with Middleton's book to over 50,000 followers.

if you're shopping on a budget, try purchasing things that cost less to buy

commuting can be a useful way of travelling between home and work, and even back home again

make it easier for your friends to enjoy TV shows they haven't watched yet by telling them what happens

enhance the effectiveness of appliances such as dishwashers by actually turning them on

if someone suggests place mats or coasters as a present for someone smile politely and keep looking for something nice

The success of this Twitter account soon led to a book deal, resulting in "When One Is Expecting: A Posh Person's Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting." The success of the Twitter account and book soon led to this dubious (even for Britain and its notoriously libel-lawsuit-friendly climate) legal action.

Although the duo's book was published in June, Middleton's lawyers Harbottle & Lewis have written to the book's publishers, Icon Books, to demand the @Pippatips Twitter account be deleted.

Now, why the publisher was approached is unclear. The Twitter account is independent of the publisher and existed before the book deal. However, the instinct is to go where you think the money is, especially in frivolous lawsuits. Obviously, this first salvo failed. The parody account is still live.

What the legal teams plans to follow up this first failure with remains to be seen. It would be very difficult to believe there's any sort of libel or defamation occurring, which is usually the direction this sort of thing tends to go. If Middleton is offended by this parody, she's sabotaged herself by drawing attention to the Twitter account (and by extension, the book that parodies her "basic" writing style).

This may be a poor attempt to extract a little revenue from a rival publisher. Middleton was advanced a reported £400,000 for the book, but low sales saw her publisher reduce the cover price 75% in hope of moving some units. She was also dropped from the publisher's roster as well as by her literary agent. This sort of spectacular crash sometimes results in desperate measures -- like poorly thought-out legal action.

Until the other foot falls, @Pippatips remains in business and its spinoff book is still selling. Both will probably see a boost in traffic thanks to Middleton's inability to handle being parodied.

Filed Under: parody, pippa middleton, streisand effect, threats, twitter, vapid