Politics on Omid Farhang

Panetta Sounds Alarm on Cyber-War Threat

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:19:00 +0000

I just read this and I decided to share with you:

In the hour-long session with the magazine’s editors, he said:

– “We are facing the threat of a new arena in warfare that could be every bit as destructive as 9/11 — the American people need to know that. We can’t hide this from the American people any more than we should have hidden the terrorism-attack threat from the American people.”

Politics and malware make strange bedfellows

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:45:00 +0000

Sophos Labs: There are two stories that have been the focus of much speculation that have come to some closure today. New information confirming many peoples suspicions about Aurora and Stuxnet have been reported by Wikileaks.org and Reuters.

As has been widely reported Wikileaks began releasing over 250,000 previously secret diplomatic cables that it is assumed they received from PFC. Bradley Manning. Most of the cables are as uninteresting as reading your friends Yahoo! mail.

Turkish hackers attack CDU websites

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:20:00 +0000

Two regional websites for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) were hacked on Tuesday by unknown perpetrators claiming to be Turkish following controversial comments by her conservatives on immigration.

Police and domestic intelligence agencies are now investigating in both the city-state of Hamburg and the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after CDU officials said their party sites were paralysed overnight when hackers replaced their homepages with a black background featuring a Turkish crest and critical comments.

Microsoft Asked to Make a Federal Budget Video Game

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 22:52:00 +0000

The Obama administration’s Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission has been working with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer to make a computer game about managing the United States federal budget and deficit, USA Today reports.

President Obama appointed Erskine Bowles and Alan K. Simpson to lead an 18-person, bi-partisan commission to generate ideas for dealing with the nation’s rising deficit and other fiscal challenges. The game is just a footnote amid the commission’s broader objectives, of course, but it’s actually not a bad idea.

Norway Uses iPad to Run the Government During Icelandic Volcano

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:13:00 +0000

Thousands of travelers are stranded throughout Europe as ash continues to rain down from an erupting volcano in Iceland this week. Among them is Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg who, according to his press secretary, is “running the Norwegian government from the United States via his new iPad.”

CNN reports that the Norwegian prime minister was in New York this week for President Obama’s nuclear summit and has been left stranded on American soil thanks to the widespread closure of most of European airspace. The volcanic eruption sent a cloud of ash toward mainland Europe that could take up to 48 hours to dissipate, resulting in over 6,000 canceled flights across the E.U.