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46407042 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity%20Registration%20Protocol | Identity Registration Protocol | The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) officially assigned TCP port 4604 to the Identity Registration Protocol (IRP) created by Sixscape Communications, Pte. Ltd. The assignment was issued by IANA on 17 March 2014, and is listed in the official IANA resource registry.
There are a very limited number of port numbers, which are assigned by IANA for protocols recognized as viable, complying with current protocol design standards, and not already covered by existing Internet standards. For example, port 25 was assigned to the SMTP email protocol many years ago. This establishes a standard and eliminates conflicts with other protocols. The technical review of IRP was performed by Lars Eggert, the distinguished chair of the Internet Research Task Force.
IRP was created by Lawrence E. Hughes, co-founder and CTO of Sixscape Communications, to allow applications to register their name, email address, UserID, their current IPv6 address and other information with the company's Domain Identity Registry server. IRP also supports all functions of a Public Key Infrastructure and an authenticated Address Registry. Sixscape's Domain Identity Registry server issues and manages X.509 client digital certificates for authentication and secure messaging. The Address Registry feature enables a new connectivity paradigm, called End2End Direct, in which user applications can connect directly to each other rather than via intermediary servers as is common with Client/Server architecture applications common on the older IPv4 Internet.
IRP is a streaming network protocol (TCP based, connection oriented). It is a Client/Server design with clearly defined server and client roles and implementations. It is secured with TLS v1.2 using the latest, strongest ciphersuites (e.g. Diffie Hellman Ephemeral for key exchange, AES256 for symmetric encryption and SHA2/384 for message digest). It does server to client authentication using an X.509 Server certificate, similar to web or email servers. It normally does client to server authentication with X.509 client certificates (usually obtained via IRP), with fallback to Username/Password Authentication (UPA) if needed. UPA can be disabled on a per-user basis. IRP protocol messages are valid XML documents.
References
External links
Official IANA resource registry
Data transmission |
46407050 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct%20End%20to%20End%20Secure%20Chat%20Protocol | Direct End to End Secure Chat Protocol | The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) officially assigned port 4605 to the SixChat End2End Direct secure messaging protocol created by Sixscape Communications, Pte. Ltd. The assignment was issued by IANA on 11 September 2014, and is listed in the official IANA resource registry at https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers
There are a very limited number of port numbers, which are assigned by IANA for protocols recognized as viable, complying with current protocol design standards, and not already covered by existing Internet standards. For example, port 25 was assigned to the SMTP email protocol many years ago. This provides a standard port and reduces conflicts with other protocols. The technical review of the SixChat protocol was performed by Lars Eggert, the distinguished chair of the Internet Research Task Force.
The SixChat messaging protocol was created by Lawrence E. Hughes, co-founder and CTO of Sixscape Communications, for their SixChat Internet application software. The new protocol allows two SixChat User Agents to connect directly, perform mutual authentication with X.509 client digital certificates and then securely exchange a symmetric session key (for encryption of all content). SixChat uses the company’s Identity Registration Protocol (IANA assigned port 4604) for address registry and retrieval, as well as Public Key Infrastructure functions (to obtain and use client digital certificates).
End2End Direct messaging requires globally routable ("public") IP addresses for all nodes involved. It is incompatible with NAT (Network Address Translation). It can work within a private internet (a subset of the IPv4 Internet that uses a flat address space with no NAT), or between any two nodes on the public IPv6 Internet. NAT prevents incoming connections, so any user to user messaging must use intermediary servers.
End2End Direct Messaging has several advantages over indirect messaging via intermediary servers. End2End Direct traffic is highly decentralized, going only via the shortest network path between communicating parties. This makes it more difficult to intercept, monitor or block. Intermediary servers introduce reliability, salability and security issues. It is much easier to monitor or block network traffic that must go through a small number of "choke points".
It would be possible to use DNS for nodename resolution (mapping nodenames to IP addresses) for End2End Direct messaging, but DNS is increasingly insecure, has no per-user authentication for registration or updating, and takes a long time to propagate. It has no good way to publish X.509 client digital certificates for users, and can only publish the address of a given network node, not the node most recently used by a particular person. IRP provides a highly secure address registry with per-user authentication (usually using X.509 certificate based Strong Client Authentication). Registered information is immediately available. IP addresses of highly mobile nodes (e.g. smart phones) may change frequently as the connect to different WiFi access points. This does not work well in the DNS model.
The SixChat End2End Messaging protocol is a streaming protocol (tcp based, connection oriented). It cannot be secured with TLS, which is an inherently Client/Server technology. It provides mutual strong authentication using only X.509 client digital certificates (no server cert involved), and symmetric session key exchange (via public/private key encryption or Ephemeral Diffie Hellman Key Exchange). This handshake is based on the design of TLS, but is not Client/Server, rather between peers. Unlike TLS, it lies entirely within the Application Layer the protocol messages are based on XML.
Nodes supporting End2End Direct messaging are neither client nor server, but must be able to originate and accept network connections (hence have characteristics of both clients and servers). Such a node is called a "User Agent".
Network protocols |
46420317 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client-side%20encryption | Client-side encryption | Client-side encryption is the cryptographic technique of encrypting data on the sender's side, before it is transmitted to a server such as a cloud storage service. Client-side encryption features an encryption key that is not available to the service provider, making it difficult or impossible for service providers to decrypt hosted data. Client-side encryption allows for the creation of applications whose providers cannot access the data its users have stored, thus offering a high level of privacy. Those applications are sometimes marketed under the misleading term "zero-knowledge".
Details
Client-side encryption seeks to eliminate the potential for data to be viewed by service providers (or third parties that compel service providers to deliver access to data), client-side encryption ensures that data and files that are stored in the cloud can only be viewed on the client side of the exchange. By remaining encrypted through each intermediary server, client side encryption ensures that data retains privacy from the origin to the destination server. This prevents data loss and the unauthorized disclosure of private or personal files, providing increased peace of mind for its users.
Current academic scholarship as well as recommendations by industry professionals provide much support for developers to include client-side encryption to protect the confidentiality and integrity of information.
Examples of cloud storage services that provide client-side encryption are Tresorit, MEGA and SpiderOak. As of February 2016, neither Apple iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox provide client-side encryption.
See also
End-to-end encryption – the encryption of data between two different clients that are communicating with each other
Homomorphic encryption
References
Cryptography
Clients (computing)
Cloud storage |
46442822 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venmo | Venmo | Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2012. Venmo was aimed at friends and family who wish to split bills, e.g. for movies, dinner, rent, or event tickets. Account holders can transfer funds to others via a mobile phone app; both the sender and receiver must live in the United States. The company handled $159 billion in transactions in 2020.
By default, Venmo publishes every peer-to-peer transaction (excluding the amount), a feature shown by researchers to reveal sensitive details about users' lives in some situations. In 2018, the company settled with the Federal Trade Commission about several privacy and security violations related to this and other features, and made changes to the corresponding settings. However, Venmo continued to attract criticism for exposing users to possible privacy risks.
History
Venmo was founded by Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, who met as freshman roommates at the University of Pennsylvania. According to Kortina, the duo were initially inspired to create a transaction solution while, in the process of helping start a friend's yogurt shop, they "realized how horrible traditional point of sales software was". At a local jazz show, Kortina and Magdon-Ismail conceived the idea of instantly buying an MP3 of the show via text message. Finally, the idea was cemented when Magdon-Ismail forgot his wallet during a trip to visit Kortina. The process of settling their debt was a considerable inconvenience, especially compared to the possibility of mobile phone-based transactions. Shortly after, they began working on a way to send money through mobile phones. Their original prototype sent money through text messages, but they eventually transitioned from text messages to a smartphone app.
In May 2010, the company raised $1.2 million of seed money in a financing round led by RRE Ventures.
In 2012, the company was acquired by Braintree for $26.2 million.
In December 2013, PayPal acquired Braintree for $800 million.
Prior to October 2015, Venmo prohibited consumer-to-business transactions on the platform.
On January 27, 2016, PayPal announced that Venmo was working with select merchants who would accept Venmo as payment. Initial launch partners included Munchery and Gametime. All merchants that accept PayPal can now accept Venmo. As of May 2018, Venmo's merchant product did not permit "selling goods or services in person"; however, research into mobile payment trends among mom-and-pop restaurants in New York City that month revealed a grey market use case whereby some Chinese takeouts and food trucks used personal Venmo QR codes to accept payments from customers. This QR payment behavior was similar to that used via Chinese mobile applications WeChat and Alipay within these same establishments.
In October 2020, PayPal announced that Venmo along with PayPal services will allow users to purchase and use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin in select international markets starting in the first half of 2021.
On April 20, 2021, Venmo announced that it is beginning its roll out for the ability to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies using the platform. However, only selected users have access to the feature and it is estimated that the cryptocurrency transfers will become available for the whole userbase only in May 2021.
Products
Users can create an account via a mobile app or website and provide basic information and bank account information. One must have a valid email address and an American mobile phone number to use Venmo. Recipients of transactions can be found via phone number, Venmo username, or email.
Users have a Venmo balance that is used for their transactions. They can link their bank accounts, debit cards, or credit cards, to their Venmo account; alternatively users can order a Venmo MasterCard and pay through it. Paying with a bank account or debit card is free, but payments via credit card have a 3% fee for each transaction. Some credit card providers may charge cash advance fees for Venmo payments. If a user does not have enough funds in the account when making a transaction, it will automatically withdraw the necessary funds from the registered bank account or card.
When users first create an account, total transactions cannot exceed $299.99 until their identity is verified. After their identity has been verified, users can send up to $2,999.99 in each seven day period.
Since 2008, cash transfers using Venmo have not been instantaneous and could be canceled after an initial transfer is sent. Like traditional wire transfers, they can take one to three business days to become final.
In January 2018, PayPal rolled out an instant transfer feature on Venmo, allowing users to deposit funds to their debit cards typically within 30 minutes. A fee is deducted from the amount for each transfer; 1% or $10, whichever is less. The standard bank transfer (typically completed within 1–3 business days) is available for no fee.
Venmo MasterCard
In 2018, Venmo released a new physical debit card available for users. The card runs on the MasterCard network and offers ATM access and overdraft protection. It can be used anywhere that accepts MasterCard, and it enables up to $400 in daily ATM withdrawals, though transactions at non-MoneyPass ATMs come with at least $2.50 in withdrawal fees.
In addition, the service offers a reload function, which, when enabled, takes money from a user's linked checking account in $10 increments if their Venmo balance drops too low to cover a purchase. Customers could be subject to fees or other consequences from their bank if they overdraft that account. Card purchases show up in a user's Venmo transaction history, and the card can be canceled from within the app. These features make the card similar to a traditional bank debit card, but adds the ability to directly track spending in-app.
Social component and privacy
Venmo includes social networking interaction; it was created so friends could quickly split bills, whether that is for movies, dinner, rent, tickets, etc. When a user makes a transaction, the transaction details (stripped of the payment amount) are shared on the user's "news feed" and to the user's network of friends. This mimics that of a social media feed. There is a "world wide" Venmo feed, a "friends only" feed, and then personal feed. Venmo encourages social interaction on the application through comments using jokes or emojis and/or likes. In 2016, around 30% of approved Venmo transactions included at least one emoji.
Early on, Venmo required new users to sign up through Facebook, which made it easy to find peers they wanted to pay and also provided Venmo with free marketing. For users not friends on Facebook, the application allowed the opportunity to search by username and phone number. Profiles are personalized with profile pictures, usernames and Venmo transaction history. The transactions can be made private, but most users keep the default and do not change the privacy settings. Venmo does not have either buyer or seller protection.
Venmo includes three social feeds: a public feed, a friends feed, and a private feed. By default, all Venmo transactions are shared publicly. Anyone who opens the app to the public feed, including people who do not themselves use Venmo, can see these publicly shared posts. The privacy settings can be changed so that all posts are either shared only with a user's Venmo contacts, or even kept private. If posts are shared only with contacts, they still appear in a friends feed, whereas private transactions are only visible to the two parties involved in the transaction. If two users involved in a single transaction have differing privacy settings, Venmo applies the more restrictive level. Users can override their overall preference for any individual transaction, including after the transaction has been made.
Security
Venmo has claimed that its security is bank-grade, and that personal and financial data are encrypted and protected on secure servers to guard against any unauthorized transactions. Venmo uses encryption to help protect the user's account details and stores that information on servers in secure locations. On the web, "https:" and a lock next to the web address is the user's signal that encryption is on. However, journalists, security researchers, the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) and the Federal Trade Commission have all disputed these claims.
In February 2018, the FTC settled with Venmo, after an investigation uncovered false representations about "bank grade" security and failures to comply with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule and Privacy Rule. Under the settlement, Venmo would be required to undergo third-party audits every two years for the following ten years. The FTC also complained that Venmo "misled consumers about the extent to which they could control the privacy of their transactions" and misrepresented the availability of funds for withdrawal.
Venmo states that customers need not worry about their security or privacy, and encourages users to set up a PIN to increase security. On July 17, 2018, The Guardian published an article showing that Venmo is insecure because privacy protection is not set by default. According to the researcher who found this privacy issue, Venmo publishes all transactions along with names openly into the World Wide Web.
The Better Business Bureau has reported that some scammers exploit the cancellation period to appear to pay, but ultimately avoid paying for an item.
In November 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Venmo, in the first quarter of 2018, had suffered $40 million in operating losses—nearly 40% more than it had budgeted for—due to "a wave of payments fraud".
Criticism and controversies
Privacy concerns
A 2018 study analyzed over 200 million public transactions and found that Venmo "reveals a massive amount of private details about users' lives by default". The same year, the company reached a settlement with the FTC after the FTC had accused Venmo of "misleading" users about the privacy settings changes required to make transactions completely private. In 2019, another researcher downloaded and analyzed seven million transactions, concluding that although Venmo had made some minor improvements limiting mass-scraping, the data still put users at risk for various forms of cyberattacks.
In 2019, Mozilla and the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote an open letter "to express our deep concern about Venmo's disregard for the importance of user privacy, and to call on Venmo to make two critical changes to its privacy settings: make transactions private by default, and give users privacy settings for their friend lists".
Venmo's social model has attracted attention from researchers. A research group from University of Washington observed that the social feed in Venmo differs from other social networks in that activity is driven by financial transactions. A user could make a trivial transaction to make a post (e.g., sending someone $0.01, or requesting $0.02), but only one participant in their studies reported ever doing this. Further, neither reading the feed nor sharing a transaction memo publicly or with friends is necessary to send or receive money.
On Venmo, people transact with both friends and businesses via the app. Analysis of public transactions identifies a spectrum of use patterns, from regular users who create transactions for a variety of expenses, to niche users who use Venmo with a small cluster of friends to pay for just a few things (e.g., bills among roommates).
A May 2021 investigation by BuzzFeed News reportedly managed to find the Venmo account of United States president Joe Biden after "less than 10 minutes of looking for it"; BuzzFeed News additionally states that the Venmo app "leaves everyone ... in the world exposed" and states that it reveals a major privacy concern.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau probe
Venmo came under scrutiny from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2021 over the company's treatment of their customers owing money for transactions. PayPal, the company operating Venmo's platform, announced through a regulatory filing in February that it had received a civil investigative demand from the CFPB "related to Venmo's unauthorized funds transfers and collections processes, and related matters." Venmo has a history of using aggressive tactics to threaten debt-owing users, ranging from seizing the funds from the user's other Paypal accounts to sending debt collectors after users. Customer service emails showed the company notifying users it could involve a collection agency over debts from $3,000 to as low as $7, according to an article in 2019 by the Wall Street Journal, in some instances even when the customer in question had been scammed. Such practices continued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
References
External links
2009 establishments in New York (state)
2013 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 2009
Companies based in New York City
Financial services companies established in 2009
Mobile payments
Payment service providers
Cryptocurrencies
PayPal
Software companies based in New York (state)
Software companies established in 2009
Software companies of the United States
2012 mergers and acquisitions
2009 establishments in Pennsylvania |
46464527 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software%20Guard%20Extensions | Software Guard Extensions | Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a set of security-related instruction codes that are built into some Intel central processing units (CPUs). They allow user-level as well as operating system code to define private regions of memory, called enclaves, whose contents are intended to be protected and unreadable by any process outside the enclave itself, including processes running at higher privilege levels. These design goals were not met; numerous attacks were found, leading Intel to stop offering SGX in newer processors.
SGX involves encryption by the CPU of a portion of memory. The enclave is decrypted on the fly only within the CPU itself, and even then, only for code and data running from within the enclave itself. The processor thus protects the code from being "spied on" or examined by other code. The code and data in the enclave utilize a threat model in which the enclave is trusted but no process outside it can be trusted (including the operating system itself and any hypervisor), and therefore all of these are treated as potentially hostile. The enclave contents are unable to be read by any code outside the enclave, other than in its encrypted form. Applications running inside of SGX must be written to be side channel resistant as SGX does not protect against side channel measurement or observation.
SGX is designed to be useful for implementing secure remote computation, secure web browsing, and digital rights management (DRM). Other applications include concealment of proprietary algorithms and of encryption keys.
Details
SGX was first introduced in 2015 with the sixth generation Intel Core microprocessors based on the Skylake microarchitecture.
Support for SGX in the CPU is indicated in CPUID "Structured Extended feature Leaf", EBX bit 02, but its availability to applications requires BIOS/UEFI support and opt-in enabling which is not reflected in CPUID bits. This complicates the feature detection logic for applications.
Emulation of SGX was added to an experimental version of the QEMU system emulator in 2014. In 2015, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology released an open-source simulator named "OpenSGX".
One example of SGX used in security was a demo application from wolfSSL using it for cryptography algorithms.
Intel Goldmont Plus (Gemini Lake) microarchitecture also contains support for Intel SGX.
Both in the 11th and 12th generations of Intel Core processors, SGX is listed as "Deprecated" and thereby not supported anymore.
Attacks
Prime+Probe attack
On 27 March 2017 researchers at Austria's Graz University of Technology developed a proof-of-concept that can grab RSA keys from SGX enclaves running on the same system within five minutes by using certain CPU instructions in lieu of a fine-grained timer to exploit cache DRAM side-channels. One countermeasure for this type of attack was presented and published by Daniel Gruss et al. at the USENIX Security Symposium in 2017. Among other published countermeasures, one countermeasure to this type of attack was published on September 28, 2017, a compiler-based tool, DR.SGX, that claims to have superior performance with the elimination of the implementation complexity of other proposed solutions.
Spectre-like attack
The LSDS group at Imperial College London showed a proof of concept that the Spectre speculative execution security vulnerability can be adapted to attack the secure enclave. The Foreshadow attack, disclosed in August 2018, combines speculative execution and buffer overflow to bypass the SGX.
Enclave attack
On 8 February 2019, researchers at Austria's Graz University of Technology published findings, which showed that in some cases it is possible to run malicious code from within the enclave itself. The exploit involves scanning through process memory, in order to reconstruct a payload, which can then run code on the system. The paper claims that due to the confidential and protected nature of the enclave, it is impossible for antivirus software to detect and remove malware residing within it. However, since modern anti-malware and antivirus solutions monitor system calls, and the interaction of the application with the operating system, it should be possible to identify malicious enclaves by their behavior, and this issue is unlikely to be a concern for state-of-the-art antiviruses. Intel issued a statement, stating that this attack was outside the threat model of SGX, that they cannot guarantee that code run by the user comes from trusted sources, and urged consumers to only run trusted code.
MicroScope replay attack
There is a proliferation of Side-channel attack plaguing modern computer architectures. Many of these attacks measure slight, nondeterministic variations in the execution of some code, so the attacker needs many, possibly tens of thousands, of measurements to learn secrets. However, the Microscope attack allows a malicious OS to replay code an arbitrary number of times regardless of the programs actual structure, enabling dozens of side-channel attacks.
Plundervolt
Security researchers were able to inject timing specific faults into execution within the enclave,
resulting in leakage of information. The attack can be executed remotely, but requires
access to the privileged control of the processor's voltage and frequency.
LVI
Load Value Injection injects data into a program aiming to replace the value loaded from memory which is then used for a short time before the mistake is spotted and rolled back, during which LVI controls data and control flow.
SGAxe
SGAxe, a SGX vulnerability, extends a speculative execution attack on cache, leaking content of the enclave. This allows an attacker to access private CPU keys used for remote attestation. In other words, a threat actor can bypass Intel's countermeasures to breach SGX's enclaves' confidentiality. The SGAxe attack is carried out by extracting attestation keys from SGX's private quoting enclave, that are signed by Intel. The attacker can then masquerade as legitimate Intel machines by signing arbitrary SGX attestation quotes.
See also
Intel MPX
Spectre-NG
Trusted execution environment (TEE)
References
External links
Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) / ISA Extensions, Intel
Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) Programming Reference, Intel, October 2014
IDF 2015 - Tech Chat: A Primer on Intel Software Guard Extensions, Intel (poster)
ISCA 2015 tutorial slides for Intel SGX, Intel, June 2015
McKeen, Frank, et al. (Intel), Innovative Instructions and Software Model for Isolated Execution // Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Hardware and Architectural Support for Security and Privacy. ACM, 2013.
Jackson, Alon, (PhD dissertation). Trust is in the Keys of the Beholder: Extending SGX Autonomy and Anonymity, May 2017.
Joanna Rutkowska, Thoughts on Intel's upcoming Software Guard Extensions (Part 1), August 2013
SGX: the good, the bad and the downright ugly / Shaun Davenport, Richard Ford (Florida Institute of Technology) / Virus Bulletin, 2014-01-07
Victor Costan and Srinivas Devadas, Intel SGX Explained, January 2016.
wolfSSL, October 2016.
The Security of Intel SGX for Key Protection and Data Privacy Applications / Professor Yehuda Lindell (Bar Ilan University & Unbound Tech), January 2018
Intel SGX Technology and the Impact of Processor Side-Channel Attacks, March 2020
How Confidential Computing Delivers A Personalised Shopping Experience, January 2021
Intel
X86 instructions
Computer security |
46493906 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%20Fi | Google Fi | Google Fi (pronounced ), formerly Project Fi, is an MVNO telecommunications service by Google that provides telephone calls, SMS, and mobile broadband using cellular networks and Wi-Fi. Google Fi uses networks operated by T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular. Google Fi is a service for US residents only, as of late 2019.
The service was launched for the Nexus 6, by invitation only, on April 22, 2015. The service was opened to the public on March 7, 2016, and support for additional devices, including the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, was introduced on October 4, 2016. On November 28, 2018, Google rebranded Project Fi as Google Fi and added support for more phones, including partial support for iPhones.
History
Google Fi was announced exclusively for the Nexus 6 smartphone on April 22, 2015, with support for Sprint and T-Mobile. Due to high demand at launch, the service required that users receive invitations, which were gradually released throughout summer 2015. The invitation system was dropped on March 7, 2016. U.S. Cellular was added on June 8, 2016. Three was added on July 12, 2016. In October 2016, Google added support for the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, and later introduced a Group Plan, letting subscribers add extra members to their plans.
On January 17, 2018, Google Fi announced bill protection which caps the charge for data at $60. If the data used is greater than 15GB, then Fi may slow the data speed to 256kbps. The user can avoid the slowdown by paying full price for the data used at $10 per GB. Bill protection also works with group plans, with a maximum charge of $85 for two people, $120 for three people, and $140 for four people. The rate for unlimited calls and texting is not affected by bill protection.
Features
Google Fi automatically switches between networks depending on signal strength and speed. It can automatically connect to open Wi-Fi hotspots while securing data with encryption through an automatic VPN. Phone calls will seamlessly transition to a cellular network if Wi-Fi coverage is lost.
Google Fi users could originally use the now defunct Google Hangouts on any phone, tablet, or computer to call and text. Google Fi also supports VoLTE as part of a staged rollout.
Google Fi supports 5G and it automatically switches between different networks.
A data-only SIM card can be used on supported tablets, smartphones, and car modems (e.g., Volvo). A data-only sim will have access to data, but will not be able to make calls or transmit texts across cellular networks
In October 2021, Google Fi announced that it would be adding support for end-to-end encrypted calls.
Plans
Monthly plans start at $20 per month and are flat fee–based, paid at the beginning of each monthly billing cycle. All plans include unlimited calls and messaging. Money for unused data is credited back to the user's account, while overuse of data results in a charge of $10 per gigabyte. When outside the United States, cellular phone calls cost $0.20 per minute, data costs the same $10 per gigabyte (i.e. there are no extra data charges outside of the US), and texting is free. Data is free at full speeds between 6GB and 15GB for the duration of the billing cycle with Bill Protection. After 15GB, data continues to be free but will be throttled to unspecified speeds. A data-only SIM card can be used on tablets and other compatible devices, including the 2013 Nexus 7, Nexus 9, and iPad Air 2. The devices must be compatible with the T-Mobile network, and users can add up to 4 data-only SIM cards in one account (before July 2019 the limit was 9 data-only SIM cards in one account).
A Group Plan, which allows users, referred to as "managers", to add other people, referred to as "members", to their subscription, costs an additional $15 per user. Group Plans let managers view data usage by member, set data notifications, add monthly allowances, and pause members' data usage. In June 2017, Group Plans were updated to feature "Group Repay", in which Google Fi automatically calculates each of the members' individual shares of the bill and allows for easy payments. Such payments can be a fixed amount, an individual's total usage, or only for data usage above the standard data allotment.
Google Fi offers an 'Unlimited' Plan for its users for a flat rate of $70 per month with up to 22GB of high speed data. After 22GB, speeds are throttled to 256kbit/s.
On both plans, users can pay an additional $10 per 1GB until their next billing cycle. Fi's 'Unlimited' plan also includes 100 GB of Google One storage at no additional cost.
Devices
LG G7 ThinQ
LG V35 ThinQ
LG V30S
LG V30
LG V20
LG G6
Moto X4 (Android One version)
Moto G6
Moto G7
Moto G Stylus
Moto G Power
Nexus 6
Nexus 5X
Nexus 6P
Pixel and Pixel XL
Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL
Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL
Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL
Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a (5G)
Pixel 5
Pixel 5a
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
iPhone 5S and later (beta)
iPhone 5C
iPhone 5
Samsung Galaxy S21
Samsung Galaxy S20
Samsung Galaxy Note20
Samsung Galaxy A71
Samsung Galaxy A32
Other Devices may work with data-only SIMs if they are unlocked and work with the T-Mobile GSM network. Google Fi may not be able to help activate or troubleshoot unlisted devices.
Reception
Nicole Lee of Engadget praised the service's plans, writing that "In the course of six months, I've barely touched my monthly 2 GB data allotment and frequently receive money back each month from unused data. I found myself paying a little more than $20 a month for Fi, which is the least I've paid for a cell phone service, ever." Lee liked the service's transition between Wi-Fi and cellular data.
JR Raphael of Computerworld also praised the pricing strategy and network transitions. Raphael also wrote that "Fi's customer support is [...] actually a pretty good experience", elaborating that "if you need extra help, both interfaces offer the ability to get 24/7 support from a real person via phone or email."
See also
Google Fiber
Google Voice
References
External links
Fi
Mobile virtual network operators |
46560977 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC%20HYDRAstor | NEC HYDRAstor | NEC HYDRAstor is a disk-based grid storage system with data deduplication for backups and archiving, developed by NEC Corporation. A HYDRAstor storage system can be composed of multiple nodes, starting from one up to 100+ nodes. Each node contains standard hardware including disk drives, CPU, memory and network interfaces and is integrated with the HYDRAstor software into a single storage pool. HYDRAstor software incorporates multiple features of distributed storage systems: content-addressable storage, global data deduplication, variable block size, Rabin fingerprinting, erasure codes, data encryption and load balancing.
History
HYDRAstor project was started in 2002 by Cezary Dubnicki and Cristian Ungureanu in NEC Research in Princeton, NJ. Prototype version was implemented and evaluated in 2004. After another 3 years of development, first version of HYDRAstor was brought to the market in US and Japan. Subsequent version with improved software and hardware were released in following years, with latest version, HS8-5000, providing 72TB raw storage per node, up to 11.88PB of raw capacity in its maximum configuration.
Main features
HYDRAstor can be scaled from single node to 165 nodes in a multi-rack grid appliance. Capacity and bandwidth can be scaled independently by using different types of nodes:
storage nodes – adding capacity
hybrid nodes – adding both capacity and performance
HYDRAstor supports online expansion, with automatic data migration and with no downtime. In standard configuration, HYDRAstor provides resiliency to up to 3 concurrent disk or node failures. Failures are automatically detected and data reconstruction is automatically performed, which means that if time between failures is enough to reconstruct data, system can withstand any number of them.
References
Backup software
Backup |
46590812 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic%20%28backup%20software%29 | Attic (backup software) | Attic is deduplicating backup software for various Unix-like operating systems.
History
Attic development began in 2010 and was accepted to Debian in August 2013. Attic is available from pip and notably part of Debian, Ubuntu, Arch and Slackware.
Design
Attic offers efficient, deduplicated, compressed and (optionally) encrypted and authenticated backups.
A backup includes metadata like owner/group, permissions, POSIX ACLs and Extended file attributes.
It handles special files also - like hardlinks, symlinks, devices files, etc. Internally it represents the files in an archive as a stream of metadata, similar to tar and unlike tools such as git. The Borg project has created extensive documentation of the internal workings.
Attic uses a rolling hash to implement global data deduplication.
Compression defaults to zlib, encryption is AES (via OpenSSL) authenticated by a HMAC.
Borg
In 2015, Attic was forked as "Borg" to support a "more open, faster paced development", according to its developers. Many issues in Attic have been fixed in this fork, but backward compatibility with the original program has been lost (a non-reversible upgrade process exists). Borg 1.0.0 was released on 5 March 2016, Borg 1.1.0 was released on 7 October 2017.
As of 2018, Borg is under active development by many contributors, while Attic is not being developed. As of April 2021, the attic website was removed.
Stable releases are available from various Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE and others, from the ports collection of various BSD derivatives and from brew for macOS. The project provides pre-built binaries for Linux, FreeBSD and macOS.
See also
List of backup software
Comparison of backup software
References
External links
BorgBackup
2010 software
Backup software for Linux
Free backup software
Python (programming language) software
Software using the BSD license |
46631243 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android%20Marshmallow | Android Marshmallow | Android Marshmallow (codenamed Android M during development) is the sixth major version of the Android operating system and the 13th version of Android. First released as a beta build on May 28, 2015, it was officially released on October 5, 2015, with the Nexus devices being the first to receive the update.
Marshmallow primarily focuses on improving the overall user experience of its predecessor, Lollipop. It introduced a new permissions architecture, new APIs for contextual assistants (first used by a new feature "Now on Tap" to provide context-sensitive search results), a new power management system that reduces background activity when a device is not being physically handled, native support for fingerprint recognition and USB-C connectors, the ability to migrate data and applications to a microSD card, and other internal changes.
, less than 5% of Android devices use this version, and when it was warned that a billion users use this (or older) version, by then no longer supported with security updates, was when 40% used those versions. Since then at least 70% of the users of those old versions have upgraded to a newer version.
History
The release was internally codenamed "Macadamia Nut Cookie". The first developer preview build, codenamed Android "M", was unveiled and released at Google I/O on May 28, 2015, for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 smartphones, Nexus 9 tablet, and Nexus Player set-top box. The second developer preview was released on July 9, 2015, and the third and final preview was released on August 17, 2015, along with announcing that Android M would be titled Android "Marshmallow".
On September 29, 2015, Google unveiled launch devices for Marshmallow: the LG-produced Nexus 5X, the Huawei-produced Nexus 6P, alongside Google's own Pixel C tablet.
Android 6.0 updates and factory images for Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9, and Player were released on October 5, 2015. Older Nexus devices, including the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (2012) and Nexus 10, did not receive an official update. On October 14, 2015, LG announced that it planned to release Marshmallow for its flagship LG G4 smartphone in Poland the following week, marking the first third-party device to receive an update to Marshmallow.
Android 6.0.1, a software patch featuring security fixes, support for Unicode 8.0 emoji (although without supporting skin tone extensions for human emoji), and the return of the "until next alarm" feature in Do Not Disturb mode, was released on December 7, 2015.
Features
User experience
A new "Assist" API allows information from a currently opened app, including text and a screenshot of the current screen, to be sent to a designated "assistant" application for analysis and processing. This system is used by the Google Search app feature "Google Now on Tap", which allows users to perform searches within the context of information currently being displayed on-screen. While the "Home" button was used in Android 5 to show available apps, the "Home" button is used now (together with a voice command) to generate on-screen cards which display information, suggestions, and actions related to the content. "Direct Share" allows Share menus to display recently used combinations of contacts and an associated app as direct targets.
Adoptable storage
The new "Adoptable storage" feature allows a newly-inserted SD card to be optionally designated as "internal" rather than "portable" storage.
"Portable" storage is the default behavior used in previous Android versions, treating the media as a secondary storage device for storage of user files, and the storage media can be removed or replaced without repercussions, but user-installed apps are restricted to writing to their respective package name directories located inside Android/data. This restriction was introduced in Android 4.4 KitKat. The Storage Access Framework, through which shared writing access to memory cards has been reinstated in Android 5.0 Lollipop, is backwards-incompatible and slower due to latencies.
When designated as "Internal" storage, the storage media is reformatted with an encrypted ext4 file system, and is "adopted" by the operating system as an extension of the primary storage partition. Existing data (including applications and "private" data folders) are migrated to the external storage, and normal operation of the device becomes dependent on the presence of the media. Apps and operating system functions will not function properly if the adopted storage device is removed, and the card can not be reused in other devices until reformatted. If the user loses access to the storage media, the adopted storage can be "forgotten", which makes the data permanently inaccessible. Samsung and LG have, however, removed the ability to use an SD card as "internal" storage on their Galaxy S7 and G5 devices, with Samsung arguing that the feature could result in unexpected losses of data, and prevents users from being able to transfer data using the card.
Platform
Android Marshmallow introduces a redesigned application permissions model; apps are no longer automatically granted all of their specified permissions at installation time. An opt-in system is now used, in which users are prompted to grant or deny individual permissions (such as the ability to access the camera or microphone) to an application when they are needed for the first time. Applications remember the grants, which can be revoked by the user at any time. The new permissions model is used only by applications developed for Marshmallow using its software development kit (SDK), and older apps will continue to use the previous all-or-nothing approach. Permissions can still be revoked for those apps, though this might prevent them from working properly, and a warning is displayed to that effect.
Marshmallow introduces new power management schemes known as "Doze" and "App Standby"; when running on battery power, a device will enter a low-power state if it is inactive and not being physically handled. In this state, network connectivity and background processing are restricted, and only "high-priority" notifications are processed. Additionally, network access by apps is deferred if the user has not recently interacted with the app. Apps may request a permission to exempt themselves from these policies, but will be rejected from Google Play Store as a violation of its "Dangerous Products" policy if their core functionality is not "adversely affected" by them.
Android Marshmallow provides native support for fingerprint recognition on supported devices via a standard API, allowing third-party applications to implement fingerprint-based authentication. Fingerprints can be used for unlocking devices and authenticating Play Store and Google Pay purchases. Android Marshmallow supports USB-C, including the ability to instruct devices to charge another device over USB. Marshmallow also introduces "verified links" that can be configured to open directly in their specified application without further user prompts. User data for apps targeting Marshmallow can be automatically backed up to Google Drive over Wi-Fi. Each application receives up to 25 MB of storage, which is separate from a user's Google Drive storage allotment.
As of Marshmallow, the Android Compatibility Definition Document contains new security mandates for devices, dictating that those that are capable of accessing encrypted data without affecting performance must enable secure boot and device encryption by default. These conditions comprise part of a specification that must be met in order to be certified for the operating system, and be able to license Google Mobile Services software. The requirement for mandatory device encryption was originally intended to take effect on Lollipop, but was delayed due to performance issues.
See also
Android version history
References
External links
2015 software
Android (operating system) |
46642905 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rombertik | Rombertik | Rombertik is spyware designed to steal confidential information from targets using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome running on Windows computers. It was first publicized by researchers at Cisco Talos Security and Intelligence Group.
Operation
Rombertik employs several techniques to make analyzing or reverse-engineering it difficult. Over 97% of the file is unnecessary code or data meant to overwhelm analysts. It loops through code hundreds of millions of times to delay execution, and checks for file names and user names used by Malware Analysis Sandboxes.
If Rombertik detects a modification in the compile time or binary resource in memory, it attempts to overwrite the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the primary hard drive. The MBR contains code necessary to boot the Operating System, as well as information about where partitions are stored on the hard drive. Though the user's data remains on the hard drive, the Operating System is unable to access it without the MBR. In some cases, it may be possible to recover data from a hard drive with a modified MBR.
If the malware does not have the necessary permissions to overwrite the MBR, it instead encrypts each file in the victim's home directory. This directory encryption technique is similar to ransomware, but Rombertik does not attempt to extort money from its victims. Files encrypted with a strong key can be nearly impossible to recover.
Ps installed, it injects code into running processes of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. The injected code intercepts web data before it is encrypted by the browser, and forwards it to a remote server.
References
2015 in computing
Spyware |
46646385 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padding%20%28disambiguation%29 | Padding (disambiguation) | Padding is a soft material used for the sake of comfort or to change the shape of something.
Padding may also refer to:
Schedule padding, time added to a transportation schedule making it resilient to delay
Padding argument, method of proving that some complexity classes are conditionally equal
Data structure alignment, achieved by "padding" data structures with unused bytes
Padding, increasing the length of a message prior to encryption so that its actual length is not disclosed
Resume padding, fluff added to a resume
Cellpadding, or cell padding, in HTML and CSS languages, the amount of space between the border of a table cell and its contents (margin in a cell)
CSS padding, a type of spacing used to lay out websites |
46647675 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON%20Web%20Token | JSON Web Token | JSON Web Token (JWT, pronounced , same as the word "jot") is a proposed Internet standard for creating data with optional signature and/or optional encryption whose payload holds JSON that asserts some number of claims. The tokens are signed either using a private secret or a public/private key.
For example, a server could generate a token that has the claim "logged in as administrator" and provide that to a client. The client could then use that token to prove that it is logged in as admin. The tokens can be signed by one party's private key (usually the server's) so that party can subsequently verify the token is legitimate. If the other party, by some suitable and trustworthy means, is in possession of the corresponding public key, they too are able to verify the token's legitimacy. The tokens are designed to be compact, URL-safe, and usable especially in a web-browser single-sign-on (SSO) context. JWT claims can typically be used to pass identity of authenticated users between an identity provider and a service provider, or any other type of claims as required by business processes.
JWT relies on other JSON-based standards: JSON Web Signature and JSON Web Encryption.
Structure
The three parts are encoded separately using Base64url Encoding , and concatenated using periods to produce the JWT:
const token = base64urlEncoding(header) + '.' + base64urlEncoding(payload) + '.' + base64urlEncoding(signature)
The above data and the secret of "secretkey" creates the token:
This resulting token can be easily passed into HTML and HTTP.
Use
In authentication, when the user successfully logs in using their credentials, a JSON Web Token will be returned and must be saved locally (typically in local or session storage, but cookies can also be used), instead of the traditional approach of creating a session in the server and returning a cookie. For unattended processes the client may also authenticate directly by generating and signing its own JWT with a pre-shared secret and pass it to a OAuth compliant service like so:POST /oauth2/token?
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
grant_type=urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:jwt-bearer&assertion=eyJhb...If the client passes a valid JWT assertion the server will generate an access_token valid for making calls to the application and pass it back to the client:{
"access_token": "eyJhb...",
"token_type": "Bearer",
"expires_in": 3600
}When the client wants to access a protected route or resource, the user agent should send the JWT, typically in the Authorization header using the Bearer schema. The content of the header might look like the following:
Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGci...<snip>...yu5CSpyHI
This is a stateless authentication mechanism as the user state is never saved in server memory. The server's protected routes will check for a valid JWT in the Authorization header, and if it is present, the user will be allowed to access protected resources. As JWTs are self-contained, all the necessary information is there, reducing the need to query the database multiple times.
Standard fields
Implementations
JWT implementations exist for many languages and frameworks, including but not limited to:
.NET (C# VB.Net etc)
C
Clojure
Common Lisp
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lua
Node.js
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
PowerShell
Python
Racket
Raku
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift
Vulnerabilities
JSON web tokens may contain session state. But if project requirements allow session invalidation before JWT expiration, services can no longer trust token assertions by the token alone. To validate that the session stored in the token is not revoked, token assertions must be checked against a data store. This renders the tokens no longer stateless, undermining the primary advantage of JWTs.
Security consultant Tim McLean reported vulnerabilities in some JWT libraries that used the alg field to incorrectly validate tokens, most commonly by accepting a alg=none token. While these vulnerabilities were patched, McLean suggested deprecating the alg field altogether to prevent similar implementation confusion. Still, new alg=none vulnerabilities are still being found in the wild, with four CVEs filed in the 2018-2021 period having this cause.
With proper design, developers can address algorithm vulnerabilities by taking precautions:
Never let the JWT header alone drive verification
Know the algorithms (avoid depending on the field alone)
Use an appropriate key size
See also
Access token
References
External links
jwt.io – specialized website about JWT with tools and documentation, maintained by Auth0
Spring Boot JWT Auth – Integrating JWT authentication with Spring framework
JWT Security – JWT Security e-Book PDF (Polish language)
Why do we need JWT in the modern web - a detailed article on the topic with some historical considerations
How To install JWT Auth in laravel - Article with installation steps of JWT Auth
Computer access control
Identity management
Federated identity
Identity management systems
Metadata standards
JSON |
46671693 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message%20authentication | Message authentication | In information security, message authentication or data origin authentication is a property that a message has not been modified while in transit (data integrity) and that the receiving party can verify the source of the message. Message authentication does not necessarily include the property of non-repudiation.
Message authentication is typically achieved by using message authentication codes (MACs), authenticated encryption (AE) or digital signatures. The message authentication code, also known as digital authenticator, is used as an integrity check based on a secret key shared by two parties to authenticate information transmitted between them. It is based on using a cryptographic hash or symmetric encryption algorithm. The authentication key is only shared by exactly two parties (e.g. communicating devices), and the authentication will fail in the existence of a third party possessing the key since the algorithm will no longer be able to detect forgeries (i.e. to be able to validate the unique source of the message). In addition, the key must also be randomly generated to avoid its recovery through brute-force searches and related-key attacks designed to identify it from the messages transiting the medium.
Some cryptographers distinguish between "message authentication without secrecy" systems – which allow the intended receiver to verify the source of the message, but they don't bother hiding the plaintext contents of the message – from authenticated encryption systems. Some cryptographers have researched subliminal channel systems that send messages that appear to use a "message authentication without secrecy" system, but in fact also transmit a secret message.
Data origin authentication and non-repudiation have been also studied in the framework of quantum cryptography.
See also
Data integrity
Authentication
Deniable authentication
References
Error detection and correction
Theory of cryptography |
46686994 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen%20%28first%20generation%29 | Zen (first generation) | Zen is the codename for the first iteration in a family of computer processor microarchitectures of the same name from AMD. It was first used with their Ryzen series of CPUs in February 2017. The first Zen-based preview system was demonstrated at E3 2016, and first substantially detailed at an event hosted a block away from the Intel Developer Forum 2016. The first Zen-based CPUs, codenamed "Summit Ridge", reached the market in early March 2017, Zen-derived Epyc server processors launched in June 2017 and Zen-based APUs arrived in November 2017.
Zen is a clean sheet design that differs from AMD's previous long-standing Bulldozer architecture. Zen-based processors use a 14 nm FinFET process, are reportedly more energy efficient, and can execute significantly more instructions per cycle. SMT has been introduced, allowing each core to run two threads. The cache system has also been redesigned, making the L1 cache write-back. Zen processors use three different sockets: desktop and mobile Ryzen chips use the AM4 socket, bringing DDR4 support; the high-end desktop Zen-based Threadripper chips support quad-channel DDR4 RAM and offer 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes (vs 24 lanes), using the TR4 socket; and Epyc server processors offer 128 PCI 3.0 lanes and octa-channel DDR4 using the SP3 socket.
Zen is based on a SoC design. The memory, PCIe, SATA, and USB controllers are incorporated into the same chip(s) as the processor cores. This has advantages in bandwidth and power, at the expense of chip complexity and die area. This SoC design allows the Zen microarchitecture to scale from laptops and small-form factor mini PCs to high-end desktops and servers.
By 2020, 260 million Zen cores have already been shipped by AMD.
Design
According to AMD, the main focus of Zen is on increasing per-core performance.
New or improved features include:
The L1 cache has been changed from write-through to write-back, allowing for lower latency and higher bandwidth.
SMT (simultaneous multithreading) architecture allows for two threads per core, a departure from the CMT (clustered multi-thread) design used in the previous Bulldozer architecture. This is a feature previously offered in some IBM, Intel and Oracle processors.
A fundamental building block for all Zen-based CPUs is the Core Complex (CCX) consisting of four cores and their associated caches. Processors with more than four cores consist of multiple CCXs connected by Infinity Fabric. Processors with non-multiple-of-four core counts have some cores disabled.
Four ALUs, two AGUs/load–store units, and two floating-point units per core.
Newly introduced "large" micro-operation cache.
Each SMT core can dispatch up to six micro-ops per cycle (a combination of 6 integer micro-ops and 4 floating point micro-ops per cycle).
Close to 2× faster L1 and L2 bandwidth, with total L3 cache bandwidth up 5×.
Clock gating.
Larger retire, load, and store queues.
Improved branch prediction using a hashed perceptron system with Indirect Target Array similar to the Bobcat microarchitecture, something that has been compared to a neural network by AMD engineer Mike Clark.
The branch predictor is decoupled from the fetch stage.
A dedicated stack engine for modifying the stack pointer, similar to that of Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors.
Move elimination, a method that reduces physical data movement to reduce power consumption.
Binary compatibility with Intel's Skylake (excluding VT-x and private MSRs):
RDSEED support, a set of high-performance hardware random number generator instructions introduced in Broadwell.
Support for the SMAP, SMEP, XSAVEC/XSAVES/XRSTORS, and CLFLUSHOPT instructions.
ADX support.
SHA support.
CLZERO instruction for clearing a cache line. Useful for handling ECC-related Machine-check exceptions.
PTE (page table entry) coalescing, which combines 4kB page tables into 32kB page size.
"Pure Power" (more accurate power monitoring sensors).
Support for intel-style running average power limit (RAPL) measurement.
Smart Prefetch.
Precision Boost.
eXtended Frequency Range (XFR), an automated overclocking feature which boosts clock speeds beyond the advertised turbo frequency.
The Zen architecture is built on a 14 nanometer FinFET process subcontracted to GlobalFoundries, which in turn licenses its 14nm process from Samsung Electronics. This gives greater efficiency than the 32 nm and 28 nm processes of previous AMD FX CPUs and AMD APUs, respectively. The "Summit Ridge" Zen family of CPUs use the AM4 socket and feature DDR4 support and a 95 W TDP (thermal design power). While newer roadmaps don't confirm the TDP for desktop products, they suggest a range for low-power mobile products with up to two Zen cores from 5 to 15 W and 15 to 35 W for performance-oriented mobile products with up to four Zen cores.
Each Zen core can decode four instructions per clock cycle and includes a micro-op cache which feeds two schedulers, one each for the integer and floating point segments. Each core has two address generation units, four integer units, and four floating point units. Two of the floating point units are adders, and two are multiply-adders. However, using multiply-add-operations may prevent simultaneous add operation in one of the adder units. There are also improvements in the branch predictor. The L1 cache size is 64 KB for instructions per core and 32 KB for data per core. The L2 cache size 512 KB per core, and the L3 is 1–2 MB per core. L3 caches offer 5× the bandwidth of previous AMD designs.
History and development
AMD began planning the Zen microarchitecture shortly after re-hiring Jim Keller in August 2012. AMD formally revealed Zen in 2015.
The team in charge of Zen was led by Keller (who left in September 2015 after a 3-year tenure) and Zen Team Leader Suzanne Plummer. The Chief Architect of Zen was AMD Senior Fellow Michael Clark.
Zen was originally planned for 2017 following the ARM64-based K12 sister core, but on AMD's 2015 Financial Analyst Day it was revealed that K12 was delayed in favor of the Zen design, to allow it to enter the market within the 2016 timeframe, with the release of the first Zen-based processors expected for October 2016.
In November 2015, a source inside AMD reported that Zen microprocessors had been tested and "met all expectations" with "no significant bottlenecks found".
In December 2015, it was rumored that Samsung may have been contracted as a fabricator for AMD's 14 nm FinFET processors, including both Zen and AMD's then-upcoming Polaris GPU architecture. This was clarified by AMD's July 2016 announcement that products had been successfully produced on Samsung's 14 nm FinFET process. AMD stated Samsung would be used "if needed", arguing this would reduce risk for AMD by decreasing dependence on any one foundry.
In December 2019, AMD started putting out first generation Ryzen products built using the second generation Zen+ architecture.
Advantages over predecessors
Manufacturing process
Processors based on Zen use 14 nm FinFET silicon. These processors are reportedly produced at GlobalFoundries. Prior to Zen, AMD's smallest process size was 28 nm, as utilized by their Steamroller and Excavator microarchitectures. The immediate competition, Intel's Skylake and Kaby Lake microarchitecture, are also fabricated on 14 nm FinFET; though Intel planned to begin the release of 10 nm parts later in 2017. Intel was unable to reach this goal, and in 2021, only mobile chips have been produced with the 10nm process. In comparison to Intel's 14 nm FinFET, AMD claimed in February 2017 the Zen cores would be 10% smaller. Intel has later announced in July 2018 that 10nm mainstream processors should not be expected before the second half of 2019.
For identical designs, these die shrinks would use less current (and power) at the same frequency (or voltage). As CPUs are usually power limited (typically up to ~125W, or ~45W for mobile), smaller transistors allow for either lower power at the same frequency, or higher frequency at the same power.
Performance
One of Zen's major goals in 2016 was to focus on performance per-core, and it was targeting a 40% improvement in instructions per cycle (IPC) over its predecessor. Excavator, in comparison, offered 4–15% improvement over previous architectures. AMD announced the final Zen microarchitecture actually achieved 52% improvement in IPC over Excavator. The inclusion of SMT also allows each core to process up to two threads, increasing processing throughput by better use of available resources.
The Zen processors also employ sensors across the chip to dynamically scale frequency and voltage. This allows for the maximum frequency to be dynamically and automatically defined by the processor itself based upon available cooling.
AMD has demonstrated an 8-core/16-thread Zen processor outperforming an equally-clocked Intel Broadwell-E processor in Blender rendering and HandBrake benchmarks.
Zen supports AVX2 but it requires two clock cycles to complete each AVX2 instruction compared to Intel's one. This difference was corrected in Zen 2.
Memory
Zen supports DDR4 memory (up to eight channels) and ECC.
Pre-release reports stated APUs using the Zen architecture would also support High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). However, the first demonstrated APU did not use HBM. Previous APUs from AMD relied on shared memory for both the GPU and the CPU.
Power consumption and heat output
Processors built at the 14 nm node on FinFET silicon should show reduced power consumption and therefore heat over their 28 nm and 32 nm non-FinFET predecessors (for equivalent designs), or be more computationally powerful at equivalent heat output/power consumption.
Zen also uses clock gating, reducing the frequency of underutilized portions of the core to save power. This comes from AMD's SenseMI technology, using sensors across the chip to dynamically scale frequency and voltage.
Enhanced security and virtualization support
Zen added support for AMD's Secure Memory Encryption (SME) and AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV). Secure Memory Encryption is real-time memory encryption done per page table entry. Encryption occurs on a hardware AES engine and keys are managed by the onboard "Security" Processor (ARM Cortex-A5) at boot time to encrypt each page, allowing any DDR4 memory (including non-volatile varieties) to be encrypted. AMD SME also makes the contents of the memory more resistant to memory snooping and cold boot attacks.
The Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) feature allows the memory contents of a virtual machine (VM) to be transparently encrypted with a key unique to the guest VM. The memory controller contains a high-performance encryption engine which can be programmed with multiple keys for use by different VMs in the system. The programming and management of these keys is handled by the AMD Secure Processor firmware which exposes an API for these tasks.
Connectivity
Incorporating much of the southbridge into the SoC, the Zen CPU includes SATA, USB, and PCI Express NVMe links. This can be augmented by available Socket AM4 chipsets which add connectivity options including additional SATA and USB connections, and support for AMD's Crossfire and Nvidia's SLI.
AMD, in announcing its Radeon Instinct line, argued that the upcoming Zen-based Naples server CPU would be particularly suited for building deep learning systems. The 128 PCIe lanes per Naples CPU allows for eight Instinct cards to connect at PCIe x16 to a single CPU. This compares favorably to the Intel Xeon line, with only 40 PCIe lanes.
Features
CPUs
CPU features table
APUs
APU features table
Products
The Zen architecture is used in the current-generation desktop Ryzen CPUs. It is also in Epyc server processors (successor of Opteron processors), and APUs.
The first desktop processors without graphics processing units (codenamed "Summit Ridge") were initially expected to start selling at the end of 2016, according to an AMD roadmap; with the first mobile and desktop processors of the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit type (codenamed "Raven Ridge") following in late 2017. AMD officially delayed Zen until Q1 of 2017. In August 2016, an early demonstration of the architecture showed an 8-core/16-thread engineering sample CPU at 3.0 GHz.
In December 2016, AMD officially announced the desktop CPU line under the Ryzen brand for release in Q1 2017. It also confirmed Server processors would be released in Q2 2017, and mobile APUs in H2 2017.
On March 2, 2017, AMD officially launched the first Zen architecture-based octacore Ryzen desktop CPUs. The final clock speeds and TDPs for the 3 CPUs released in Q1 of 2017 demonstrated significant performance-per-watt benefits over the previous K15h (Piledriver) architecture. The octacore Ryzen desktop CPUs demonstrated performance-per-watt comparable to Intel's Broadwell octacore CPUs.
In March 2017, AMD also demonstrated an engineering sample of a server CPU based on the Zen architecture. The CPU (codenamed "Naples") was configured as a dual-socket server platform with each CPU having 32 cores/64 threads.
Desktop processors
Desktop APUs
Ryzen APUs are identified by either the G or GE suffix in their name.
Mobile APUs
Embedded processors
In February 2018, AMD announced the V1000 series of embedded Zen+Vega APUs with four SKUs.
Server processors
AMD announced in March 2017 that it would release a server platform based on Zen, codenamed Naples, in the second quarter of the year. The platform include 1- and 2-socket systems. The CPUs in multi-processor configurations communicate via AMD's Infinity Fabric. Each chip supports eight channels of memory and 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, of which 64 lanes are used for CPU-to-CPU communication through Infinity Fabric when installed in a dual-processor configuration. AMD officially revealed Naples under the brand name Epyc in May 2017.
On June 20, 2017, AMD officially released the Epyc 7000 series CPUs at a launch event in Austin, Texas.
Embedded Server processors
In February 2018, AMD also announced the EPYC 3000 series of embedded Zen CPUs.
See also
AMD K9
AMD K10
Jim Keller (engineer)
Ryzen
Steamroller (microarchitecture)
Zen+
Zen 2
References
External links
Ryzen Processors AMD
Advanced Micro Devices microarchitectures
Computer-related introductions in 2017
X86 microarchitectures |
46696066 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%2010%20editions | Windows 10 editions | Windows 10 has several editions, all with varying feature sets, use cases, or intended devices. Certain editions are distributed only on devices directly from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), while editions such as Enterprise and Education are only available through volume licensing channels. Microsoft also makes editions of Windows 10 available to device manufacturers for use on specific classes of devices, including IoT devices and previously marketed Windows 10 Mobile for smartphones.
Baseline editions
Baseline editions are the only editions available as standalone purchases in retail outlets. PCs often come pre-installed with one of these editions.
Windows 10 Home is designed for use in PCs, tablets and 2-in-1 PCs. It includes all features directed at consumers.
Windows 10 Pro includes all features of Windows 10 Home, with additional capabilities that are oriented towards professionals and business environments, such as Active Directory, Remote Desktop, BitLocker, Hyper-V, and Windows Defender Device Guard.
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations is designed for high-end hardware for intensive computing tasks and supports Intel Xeon, AMD Opteron and the latest AMD Epyc processors; up to four CPUs; up to 6 TB RAM; the ReFS file system; Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Module (NVDIMM); and remote direct memory access (RDMA).
Organizational editions
These editions add features to facilitate centralized control of many installations of the OS within an organization. The main avenue of acquiring them is a volume licensing contract with Microsoft.
Windows 10 Education is distributed through Academic Volume Licensing. It was based on Windows 10 Enterprise and initially reported to have the same feature set. As of version 1709, however, this edition has fewer features. See for details.
This edition was introduced in July 2016 for hardware partners on new devices purchased with the discounted K–12 academic license. It was based on the Pro edition of Windows 10 and contains mostly the same features as Windows 10 Pro with different options disabled by default, and adds options for setup and deployment in an education environment. It also features a "Set Up School PCs" app that allows provisioning of settings using a USB flash drive, and does not include Cortana, Microsoft Store suggestions, Windows Sandbox, or Windows Spotlight.
Windows 10 Enterprise provides all the features of Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, with additional features to assist with IT-based organizations. Windows 10 Enterprise is configurable on two servicing channels, Semi-Annual Channel and Windows Insider Program.
Enterprise LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) (formerly LTSB (Long-Term Servicing Branch)) is a long-term support variant of Windows 10 Enterprise released every 2 to 3 years. Each release is supported with security updates for either 5 or 10 years after its release, and intentionally receive no feature updates. Some features, including the Microsoft Store and bundled apps, are not included in this edition. This edition was first released as Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Long-Term Servicing Branch). There are currently 4 releases of LTSC: one in 2015 (version 1507), one in 2016 (version 1607), one in 2018 (labeled as 2019, version 1809), and one in 2021 (version 21H2).
S mode
Since 2018, OEMs can ship Windows 10 Home and Pro in a feature-limited variation named S mode which evolved from the discontinued Windows 10 S. Organizations employing Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education can make use of S mode too. S mode is a feature-limited edition of Windows 10 designed primarily for low-end devices in the education market. It has a faster initial setup and login process, and allows devices to be provisioned using a USB drive with the "Set Up School PCs" app.
With the exception of the Microsoft Teams desktop client which was made available for S mode in April 2019, the installation of software (both Universal Windows Platform and Windows API apps) is only possible through the Microsoft Store, and command line programs or shells (even from Microsoft Store) are not allowed. System settings are locked to allow only Microsoft Edge as the default web browser with Bing as its search engine. The operating system may be switched out of S mode using the Microsoft Store for free. However, once S Mode is turned off, it cannot be re-enabled. All Windows 10 devices in S mode include a free one-year subscription to Minecraft: Education Edition. Critics have compared the edition to Windows RT, and have considered it to be a competitor to Chrome OS.
Device-specific editions
These editions are licensed to OEMs only, and are primarily obtained via the purchase of hardware that includes it:
A specific edition used by Microsoft's HoloLens mixed reality smartglasses.
A rebranded variant of Microsoft's earlier embedded operating systems, Windows Embedded. Designed specifically for use in small footprint, low-cost devices and IoT scenarios. IoT Core was discontinued on October 11, 2020.
A specific edition used by Microsoft's Surface Hub interactive whiteboard.
Discontinued editions
The following editions of Windows 10 were discontinued (as of Windows 10 version 21H2). For both Mobile and Mobile Enterprise, Microsoft confirmed it was exiting the consumer mobile devices market, so no successor product is available.
Windows 10 Mobile was designed for smartphones and small tablets. It included all basic consumer features, including Continuum capability. It was the de facto successor of Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows RT.
Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise provided all of the features in Windows 10 Mobile, with additional features to assist IT-based organizations, in a manner similar to Windows 10 Enterprise, but optimized for mobile devices.
A binary equivalent of Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise licensed for IoT applications. Also known as IoT Mobile Enterprise.
Windows 10 S was an edition released in 2017 which ultimately evolved into the so-called S mode of Windows 10. In March 2018, Microsoft announced that it would be phasing out Windows 10 S, citing confusion among manufacturers and end-users.
Originally announced for use on dual-screen devices such as the Surface Neo and other potential form factors, 10X featured a modified user interface designed around context specific interactions or "postures" on such devices, including a redesigned Start menu with no tiles, and use of container technology to run Win32 software. The platform was described as a more direct competitor to Chrome OS. On May 4, 2020, Microsoft announced that Windows 10X would first be used on single-screen devices, and that they will "continue to look for the right moment, in conjunction with our OEM partners, to bring dual-screen devices to market". On May 18, 2021, Head of Windows Servicing and Delivery John Cable stated that Windows 10X had been cancelled, and that its foundational technologies would be leveraged for future Microsoft products. Several design changes in 10X, notably the centered taskbar and redesigned start menu, would be later introduced in Windows 11.
Regional variations
As with previous versions of Windows since Windows XP, all Windows 10 editions for PC hardware have "N" and "KN" variations in Europe and South Korea that exclude certain bundled multimedia functionality, including media players and related components, in order to comply with antitrust rulings. The "Media Feature Pack" can be installed to restore these features. The variation cannot be changed without a clean install, and keys for one variation will not work on other variations.
As with Windows 8.1, a reduced-price "Windows 10 with Bing" SKU is available to OEMs; it is subsidized by having Microsoft's Bing search engine set as default, which cannot be changed to a different search engine by OEMs. It is intended primarily for low-cost devices, and is otherwise identical to Windows 10 Home.
In some emerging markets, OEMs preinstall a variation of Windows 10 Home called Single Language without the ability to switch the display language. It is otherwise identical to Windows 10 Home. To change display language, the user will need to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.
In May 2017, it was reported that Microsoft, as part of its partnership with China Electronics Technology Group, created a specially-modified variant of Windows 10 Enterprise ("G") designed for use within branches of the Chinese government. This variant is pre-configured to "remove features that are not needed by Chinese government employees", and allow the use of its internal encryption algorithms.
Comparison chart
[1] The 4 GB limit for 32-bit editions is a limitation of the 32-bit addressing, not of Windows 10 itself. In practice, less than 4 GB of memory is addressable as the 4 GB space also includes the memory mapped peripherals.
Microsoft OEM licensing formula takes display size, RAM capacity and storage capacity into account. In mid-2015, devices with 4 GB RAM were expected to be $20 more expensive than devices with 2 GB RAM.
Upgrade path
Free upgrade
At the time of launch, Microsoft deemed Windows 7 (with Service Pack 1) and Windows 8.1 users eligible to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge, so long as the upgrade took place within one year of Windows 10's initial release date. Windows RT and the respective Enterprise editions of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 were excluded from this offer.
Commercial upgrade
The following table summarizes possible upgrade paths that can be taken, provided that proper licenses are purchased.There is no upgrade path that can allow Windows RT 8.1 devices to install Windows 10.
Release branches
New releases of Windows 10, called feature updates, are released twice a year as a free update for existing Windows 10 users. Each feature update contains new features and other changes to the operating system. The pace at which a system receives feature updates is dependent on the release branch from which the system downloads its updates. Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education could optionally use a branch, which is defunct since version 1903, that received updates at a slower pace. These modes could be managed through system settings, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update for Business, Group Policy or through mobile device management systems such as Microsoft Intune.
Windows
Windows Insider is a beta testing program that allows access to pre-release builds of Windows 10; it is designed to allow power users, developers, and vendors to test and provide feedback on future feature updates to Windows 10 as they are developed. Windows Insider itself consists of four "rings", "Fast" (which receives new builds as they are released), "Slow" (which receives new builds on a delay after it is deployed to Fast ring users), "Release Preview" (which receives early access to updates for the Current Branch), and formerly "Skip Ahead" (which receives super-early builds for the next feature update while a current release is being finished).
The Current Branch (CB) distributed all feature updates as they graduate from the Windows Insider branch. Microsoft only supported the latest build. A feature update can be deferred for up to 365 days, while a quality update can be deferred for up to 30 days before it will be listed as available in Windows Update. As of version 1703, additional settings were provided to pause checking of updates for up to 35 days, but they were not available on Windows 10 Home. The branch was renamed to Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) beginning with version 1709 before being merged to the Semi-Annual Channel since version 1903.
The Current Branch for Business (CBB) distributed feature updates on a four-month delay from their original release to the Current Branch for Business, till version 1809. This allowed customers and vendors to evaluate and perform additional testing on new builds before broader deployments. Devices could be switched back to the Current Branch at any time. Before version 1903, the branch was not available on Windows 10 Home. This branch was renamed to Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) from version 1703 to version 21H1. It was later renamed again to General Availability Channel (GAC) since version 21H2.
(LTSC)
This servicing option is exclusively available for Windows 10 Enterprise, IoT Core, and IoT Enterprise LTSC editions. Distribution snapshots of these editions are updated every 2-3 years. LTSC builds adhere to Microsoft's traditional support policy which was in effect before Windows 10: They are not updated with new features, and are supported with critical updates for either 5 or 10 years after their release. Microsoft officially discourages the use of LTSC outside of "special-purpose devices" that perform a fixed function and thus do not require new user experience features. As a result, it excludes Windows Store, most Cortana functionality, and most bundled apps (including Microsoft Edge). According to a Microsoft announcement, this servicing option was renamed from Long-Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) in 2016 to Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) in 2018, to match the name changes mentioned above.
See also
Windows Server 2016, based on Windows 10 version 1607
Windows Server 2019, based on Windows 10 version 1809
Xbox system software, an operating system now based on the Windows 10 core, designed to run on consoles
Windows 10 version history
Notes
References
Windows 10 |
46707887 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-arms%20industry | Cyber-arms industry | The cyber-arms industry are the markets and associated events surrounding the sale of software exploits, zero-days, cyberweaponry, surveillance technologies, and related tools for perpetrating cyberattacks. The term may extend to both grey and black markets online and offline.
For many years, the burgeoning dark web market remained niche, available only to those in-the-know or well funded. Since at least 2005, governments including the U.S., United Kingdom, Russia, France, and Israel have been buying exploits from defence contractors and individual hackers. This 'legitimate' market for zero day exploits exists but is not well advertised or immediately accessible.
Attempts to openly sell zero day exploits to governments and security vendors to keep them off the black market have so far been unsuccessful.
Companies
Traditional arms producers and military services companies such as BAE Systems, EADS, Leonardo, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Thales have all expanded into the cybersecurity markets. However, smaller software companies such as Blue Coat and Amesys have also become involved, often drawing attention for providing surveillance and censorship technologies to the regimes of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
Suppliers of exploits to western governments include the Massachusetts firm Netragard.
The trade show ISS World that runs every few months has been referred to as the 'international cyber arms bazaar' and the 'wiretappers ball' focuses on surveillance software for lawful interception.
Some other cyberarms companies include Endgame, Inc., Gamma Group, NSO Group, Birmingham Cyber Arms LTD and Ability. Circles, a former surveillance business, merged with NSO Group in 2014.
On 26 July 2017 Google researchers announced the discovery of new spyware they named "Lipizzan". According to Google, "Lipizzan's code contains references to a cyber arms company, Equus Technologies.".
On the Internet
The most popular Internet forums are generally in Russian or Ukrainian and there are reports of English-only, Chinese-only, German-only, and Vietnamese-only sites, among others. Phishing, spear-phishing, and other social engineer campaigns are typically done in English, as a majority of potential victims know that language. India's Central Bureau of Investigation describe the proliferation of underground markets as 'widespread'. Colonel John Adams, head of the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity has expressed concerns these markets could allow cyberweapony to fall into the hands of hostile governments which would otherwise lack the expertise to attack an advanced country's computer systems.
Online, there is increasing uses of encryption and privacy mechanisms such as off the record messaging and cryptocurrencies.
Since 2005 on darknet markets and black markets such as the 'Cyber Arms Bazaar' have had their prices dropping fast with the cost of cyberweaponry plummeting at least 90 percent.
Botnets are increasingly rented out by cyber criminals as commodities for a variety of purposes.
RDP shops offer cheap access to hacked computers.
Vendor responses
In recent years, many software firms have had success with bug bounty programs, but in some cases such as with Vupen's Chrome exploit these will be rejected as below market value. Meanwhile, some vendors such as HP spent more than $7 million between 2005 and 2015 buying exploits for its own software. This behaviour has been criticised by head of the United States Cyber Command, General Keith Alexander. This criticism then is known as "building the black market".
Notable markets
Cyber Arms Bazaar – a darknet market operating out of various Eastern European countries, trafficking crimeware and hacking tools that has run since at least the year 2000. Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer of Trend Micro, estimates over 80 percent of financial sector cyberattacks could be traced back to the bazaar, with retail cyberattacks not far behind.
Darkode
TheRealDeal
See also
Cybercrime
Cyberwarfare
Cyberweapon
Market for zero-day exploits
Mass surveillance industry
Vulnerabilities Equities Process
References
Hacking (computer security)
Cybercrime
Darknet markets
Cyberpunk themes
Cyber-arms companies
Mass surveillance
Software industry
Industries (economics) |
46710302 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%20Landrock | Peter Landrock | Peter Landrock (born August 20, 1948 in Horsens) is a Danish cryptographer and mathematician. He is known for his contributions to data encryption methods and codes. Landrock has been active since the 1970s as research scientist and faculty member for Cambridge University and the University of Aarhus and others, and was active for Microsoft and Cryptomathic. He has been visiting professor at Oxford University, Leuven University and Princeton University.
Background and career
Landrock obtained a diploma in mathematics and physics in 1972 from the University of Aarhus. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1974 for his research on elementary abelian and dihedral defect groups, under George Isaac Glauberman and Richard Dagobert Brauer. In 1975, Landrock became associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Aarhus University, then full Professor. From 1982 until 1983, Landrock was visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
In 1986 he founded the company Cryptomathic together with Ivan Damgård. It was his research work on Cryptography and Coding Theory at the Isaac Newton Institute, which inspired him to shift the focus of his work to corporate research at Cryptomathic, where he joined forces with researchers such as Vincent Rijmen and Whitfield Diffie.
By 1996 he had joined the Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge University as Research Program Organizer, and since 1997, Landrock has been senior member of the Wolfson College, Cambridge University. Landrock has been member of the Danish IT Security Council as adviser to the Danish Government from 1999 to 2007.
From 1997 until 2010, Landrock was as a Member of Microsoft's Technical Advisory Board in Cambridge and has also served as a member of the board of the Villum Foundation in Copenhagen since 2008. In 2014 Landrock became Member of the Technical Advisory Board of the Turing Gateway of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
Cryptography
Landrock was President of the International Association for Cryptologic Research from 1992 to 1995 and General Chair at the Eurocrypt conference for cryptography research in 1990. In 1996 he was one of the organizers of a research programme in Cryptography at the Newton Institute at University of Cambridge. The term "What You See Is What You Sign" (WYSIWYS) was coined in 1998 by Landrock and Torben P. Pedersen of Cryptomathic during their work on delivering secure and legally binding digital signatures for Pan-European projects.
Landrock contributed to more than twenty entries to the Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security including articles on PKCS, SSH, public key infrastructure and certificate authorities. His research focus since the late 1980s included subject areas as Key management systems, EMV and Card Payment Solutions and Authentication.
He has lectured on cryptography at more than 150 Universities. The European Patent Office recognized that Landrock's “inventions have helped secure electronic voting systems and electronic passport solutions”.
Awards and recognition
In 1991 Landrock was awarded the Danish Data Security Prize, and in 2004, Landrock received the BIT Price for engineering entrepreneurship from the Danish Engineers.
His achievements with Cryptomathic were recognised by the World Economic Forum in 2003 and he received the VISA Smart Start Award for the work on Chip and Pin. In 2010, Landrock was named a finalist for European Inventor 2010 in the "Lifetime Achievement" category by the European Patent Office stating that many of today’s established data encryption methods and codes “bear the mark of ... Peter Landrock”
In July 2019, Landrock was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa for his lifetime achievement in cryptographic technology.
References
External links
Homepage of Professor Peter Landrock at Wolfson College Cambridge
List of Publications by Peter Landrock
Peter Landrock at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Living people
Modern cryptographers
Danish cryptographers
Danish mathematicians
Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge
Public-key cryptographers
Microsoft people
University of Chicago alumni
1948 births
People from Horsens |
46728817 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic%20Mac%20OS | Classic Mac OS | The classic Mac OS (System Software) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.
Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984. The first version of the system software, which had no official name, was partially based on the Lisa OS, which Apple previously released for the Lisa computer in 1983. As part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favorable price, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and other Lisa team members had previewed. This operating system consisted of the Macintosh Toolbox ROM and the "System Folder", a set of files that were loaded from disk. The name Macintosh System Software came into use in 1987 with System 5. Apple rebranded the system as Mac OS in 1996, starting officially with version 7.6, due in part to its Macintosh clone program. That program ended after the release of Mac OS 8 in 1997. The last major release of the system was Mac OS 9 in 1999.
Initial versions of the System Software ran one application at a time. With the Macintosh 512K, a system extension called the Switcher was developed to use this additional memory to allow multiple programs to remain loaded. The software of each loaded program used the memory exclusively; only when activated by the Switcher did the program appear, even the Finder's desktop. With the Switcher, the now familiar Clipboard feature allowed copy and paste between the loaded programs across switches including the desktop.
With the introduction of System 5, a cooperative multitasking extension called MultiFinder was added, which allowed content in windows of each program to remain in a layered view over the desktop, and was later integrated into System 7 as part of the operating system along with support for virtual memory. By the mid-1990s, however, contemporary operating systems such as Windows NT, OS/2, and NeXTSTEP had all brought pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory, access controls, and multi-user capabilities to desktop computers. The Macintosh's limited memory management and susceptibility to conflicts among extensions that provide additional functionality, such as networking or support for a particular device, led to significant criticism of the operating system, and was a factor in Apple's declining market share at the time.
After two aborted attempts at creating a successor to the Macintosh System Software called Taligent and Copland, and a four-year development effort spearheaded by Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1997, Apple replaced Mac OS with a new operating system in 2001 named Mac OS X; the X signifying the underlying Unix system family base shared with Jobs's development of the NeXTSTEP operating systems on the NeXT computer. It retained most of the user interface design elements of the classic Mac OS, and there was some overlap of application frameworks for compatibility, but the two operating systems otherwise have completely different origins and architectures.
The final updates to Mac OS 9 released in 2001 provided interoperability with Mac OS X. The name "Classic" that now signifies the historical Mac OS as a whole is a reference to the Classic Environment, a compatibility layer that helped ease the transition to Mac OS X (now macOS).
Initial concept
The Macintosh project started in late 1978 with Jef Raskin, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin began looking for an engineer who could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson, a member of the Apple Lisa team, introduced Raskin to Burrell Smith, a service technician who had been hired earlier that year.
Apple's concept for the Macintosh deliberately sought to minimize the user's awareness of the operating system. Many basic tasks that required more operating system knowledge on other systems could be accomplished by mouse gestures and graphic controls on a Macintosh. This would differentiate it from its contemporaries such as MS-DOS, which use a command-line interface consisting of terse, abbreviated textual commands.
In January 1981, Steve Jobs completely took over the Macintosh project. Jobs and a number of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC in December 1979, three months after the Lisa and Macintosh projects had begun. After hearing about the pioneering GUI technology being developed at Xerox PARC from former Xerox employees like Raskin, Jobs negotiated a visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. The final Lisa and Macintosh operating systems use concepts from the Xerox Alto, but many elements of the graphical user interface were created by Apple including the menu bar, pull-down menus, and the concepts of drag and drop and direct manipulation.
Unlike the IBM PC, which uses 8 kB of system ROM for power-on self-test (POST) and basic input/output system (BIOS), the Mac ROM is significantly larger (64 kB) and holds key OS code. Much of the original Mac ROM was coded by Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh team. He was able to conserve precious ROM space by writing routines in assembly language code optimized with "hacks," or clever programming tricks. In addition to the ROM, he also coded the kernel, the Macintosh Toolbox, and some of the desktop accessories (DAs). The icons of the operating system, which represent folders and application software, were designed by Susan Kare, who later designed the icons for Microsoft Windows 3.0. Bruce Horn and Steve Capps wrote the Macintosh Finder, as well as a number of Macintosh system utilities.
Apple aggressively advertised their new machine. After its release, the company bought all 39 pages of advertisement space in the 1984 November/December edition of Newsweek magazine. The Macintosh quickly outsold its more sophisticated but much more expensive predecessor, the Lisa. Apple quickly developed MacWorks, a product that allowed the Lisa to emulate Macintosh system software through System 3, by which time it had been discontinued as the rebranded Macintosh XL. Many of the Lisa's operating system advances would not appear in the Macintosh operating system until System 7 or later.
Architecture
Compatibility
Early versions of Mac OS are compatible only with Motorola 68000-family Macintoshes. As Apple introduced computers with PowerPC hardware, the OS was ported to support this architecture. Mac OS 8.1 is the last version that could run on a 68k processor (the 68040).
In systems prior to PowerPC G3-based systems, significant parts of the system are stored in physical ROM on the motherboard. The initial purpose of this is to avoid having the OS use up most of the 128KiB RAM of the initial Macintosh—the initial ROMs were 64KiB. This architecture also allows for a completely graphical OS interface at the lowest level without the need for a text-only console or command-line mode: boot time errors, such as finding no functioning disk drives, are communicated to the user graphically, usually with an icon or the distinctive Chicago bitmap font and a Chime of Death or a series of beeps. This is in contrast to MS-DOS and CP/M computers of the time, which display such messages in a mono-spaced font on a black background, and require the use of the keyboard rather than a mouse, for input. To provide such niceties at a low level, early Mac OS depends on core system software in ROM on the motherboard, which also ensured that only Apple computers or licensed clones (with the copyright-protected ROMs from Apple) can run Mac OS.
Mac clones
Several computer manufacturers over the years made Macintosh clones that were capable of running Mac OS. From 1995 to 1997, Apple licensed Macintosh ROMs to several companies, notably Power Computing, UMAX and Motorola. These machines normally ran various versions of classic Mac OS. Steve Jobs ended the clone-licensing program after returning to Apple in 1997.
Support for Macintosh clones was first exhibited in System 7.5.1, which was the first version to include the "Mac OS" logo (a variation on the original Happy Mac startup icon), and Mac OS 7.6 was the first to be named "Mac OS" instead of "System". These changes were made to disassociate the operating system from Apple's own Macintosh models.
File systems
The Macintosh originally used the Macintosh File System (MFS), a flat file system with only one level of folders. This was quickly replaced in 1985 by the Hierarchical File System (HFS), which had a true directory tree. Both file systems are otherwise compatible. An improved file system named HFS Plus ("HFS+" or "Mac OS Extended") was announced in 1997 and implemented in 1998.
Files in most file systems used with DOS, Windows, Unix, or other operating systems have only one "fork". By contrast, MFS and HFS give files two different "forks". The data fork contains the same sort of information as a file in other file systems, such as the text of a document or the bitmaps of an image file. The resource fork contains other structured data such as menu definitions, graphics, sounds, or code segments that would be incorporated into a program's file format on other systems. An executable file might consist only of resources (including code segments) with an empty data fork, while a data file might have only a data fork with no resource fork. A word processor file could contain its text in the data fork and styling information in the resource fork, so that an application which doesn't recognize the styling information can still read the raw text.
On the other hand, these forks would provide a challenge to interoperability with other operating systems. In copying or transferring a Mac OS file to a non-Mac system, the default implementations would simply strip the file of its resource fork. Most data files contained only nonessential information in their resource fork, such as window size and location, but program files would be inoperative without their resources. This necessitated such encoding schemes as BinHex and MacBinary, which allowed a user to encode a dual-forked file into a single stream, or inversely take a single stream so-encoded and reconstitute it into a dual-forked file usable by Mac OS.
Release history
System 1, 2, 3, and 4
As part of Apple's goal of creating a computer with appliance-like simplicity, there is no explicit distinction made between the operating system software and the hardware it runs on. Because of this, early versions of the operating system do not have a distinct name. The software consists of two user-visible files: the System file, and the Finder, an application used for file management that also displays the Desktop. The two files are contained in a folder directory labeled "System Folder", which contains other resource files, like a printer driver, needed to interact with the System. Version numbers of the operating system are based on the version numbers of these two files.
System 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 use a flat file system named Macintosh File System (MFS). The Finder provides virtual folders that could be used to organize files, but these folders are not visible from any other application and do not actually exist on the disk.
System 2.0 added support for AppleTalk and the newly introduced LaserWriter to use it.
System 2.1 (Finder 5.0) introduced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) which has real directories. This version was specifically to support the Hard Disk 20 and only implements HFS in RAM; startup and most floppy disks remain MFS 400 K volumes.
System 3.0 (Finder 5.1) was introduced with the Macintosh Plus, officially implementing HFS, 800K startup drives, support for several new technologies including SCSI and AppleShare, and Trash "bulging" (i.e., when the Trash contains files, it gains a bulged appearance).
System 4.0 was released with the Macintosh SE and System 4.1 first shipped with the Macintosh II—these new machines required additional support for the first expansion slots, the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), internal hard drives and, on the Macintosh II, external color displays and the first Motorola 68020 processor.
These releases can only run one application at a time, except for desk accessories, though special application shells such as Multi-Mac or Switcher (discussed under MultiFinder) could work around this. Visible changes are best reflected in the version number of the Finder, where major leaps are found between 1.x, 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x.
In the late 1990s, Apple retroactively gave these older releases a single name.
System Software 5
Towards the end of 1987, Apple introduced a package titled "Apple Macintosh System Software Update 5.0". For the first time, the Macintosh operating system was offered as a distinct retail product that included four 800K disks and three manuals, at a cost of US$49. The software itself was still freely available through user groups and bulletin board services. While the product box presented this update to the operating system as "version 5.0", this number does not appear in the software itself. Three of the four disks (System Tools 1, System Tools 2 and Utilities 1) are all bootable, and the user can boot off whichever floppy contain the tools the user needs. For instance, System Tools 2 is the only disk with printer drivers, and Utilities 1 is the only disk with Disk First Aid and Apple HD SC Setup. Because the disks are named System Tools, users and the press commonly referred to this version as "System Tools 5.0".
The primary new feature of System 5 is MultiFinder, an extension which lets the system run several programs at once. The system uses a cooperative multitasking model, meaning that time is given to the background applications only when the foreground application yields control. A change in system functions that applications were already calling to handle events make many existing applications share time automatically, as well as being allowed to perform tasks in the background. Users can also choose not to use MultiFinder, thereby using a single application at a time. In 1990 InfoWorld tested four multitasking options for PC and Mac, viewing MultiFinder positively overall, but noting that its presence halved the speed of file transfer and printing compared to the single-tasking System 6 without MultiFinder.
System Software 6
System Software 6 (also referred to as "System 6") is a consolidation release of the Macintosh system software, producing a complete, stable, and long-lasting operating system. Two major hardware introductions requiring additional support under System 6 are the 68030 processor and 1.44 MB SuperDrive debuting with the Macintosh IIx and Macintosh SE/30. Later updates include support for the first specialized laptop features with the introduction of the Macintosh Portable. From System 6 forward, the Finder has a unified version number closely matching that of the System, alleviating much of the confusion caused by the often considerable differences between earlier Systems.
System 7/Mac OS 7
On May 13, 1991, System 7 was released. It is a major upgrade over System 6, adding a significant user interface overhaul, new applications, stability improvements and many new features. Its introduction coincides with the release of and provided support for the 68040 Macintosh line. The System 7 era saw numerous changes in the Macintosh platform including a proliferation of Macintosh models, the 68k to Power Macintosh transition as well as the rise of Microsoft Windows, increasing use of computer networking and the explosion in popularity of the Internet.
One of the most significant features of System 7 is virtual memory support, an essential subsystem anticipated for years, which only exists for previous Systems in a third party extension named Virtual from Connectix. Accompanying this was a move to 32-bit memory addressing, necessary for the ever-increasing amounts of RAM available to the Motorola 68030 CPU, and 68020 CPUs with a 68851 PMMU. This process involves making all of the routines in OS code use the full 32-bits of a pointer as an address—prior systems used the upper 8 bits as flags. This change is known as being "32-bit clean". While System 7 itself is 32-bit clean, many existing machines and thousands of applications were not, so it was some time before the process was completed. To ease the transition, the "Memory" control panel contains a switch to disable this feature, allowing for compatibility with older applications.
Another notable System 7 feature is built-in cooperative multitasking. In System Software 6, this function was optional through the MultiFinder. System 7 also introduced aliases, similar to symbolic links on Unix, shortcuts that were introduced in later versions of Microsoft Windows, and shadows in IBM OS/2. System extensions were enhanced by being moved to their own subfolder; a subfolder in the System Folder was also created for the control panels. In System 7.5, Apple includes the Extensions Manager, a previously third-party program which simplified the process of enabling and disabling extensions.
The Apple menu, home only to desk accessories in System 6, was made more general-purpose: the user could now make often-used folders and applications—or anything else they desired—appear in the menu by placing aliases to them in an "Apple Menu Items" subfolder of the System Folder. System 7 also introduced the following: AppleScript, a scripting language for automating tasks; 32-bit QuickDraw, supporting so-called "true color" imaging, previously available as a system extension; and TrueType, an outline font standard.
The Trash, under System 6 and earlier, empties itself automatically when shutting down the computer—or, if MultiFinder is not running, when launching an application. System 7 reimplements the Trash as a special hidden folder, allowing files to remain in it across reboots until the user deliberately chose the "Empty Trash" command.
System 7.1
System 7.1 is mainly a bugfix release, with a few minor features added. One of the major new features of System 7.1 was moving fonts out of the System file into the Fonts folder in the System Folder. Previously a resource-copying utility such as ResEdit or Font D/A Mover was required for installing fonts. System 7.1 is not only the first Macintosh operating system to cost money (all previous versions were free or sold at the cost of the floppies), but also received a "Pro" sibling (version 7.1.1) with extra features. System 7.1.2 was the first version to support PowerPC-based Macs. System 7.1 also introduces the System Enablers as a method to support new models without updating the actual System file. This leads to extra files inside the system folder (one per new model supported).
System 7.5
System 7.5 introduces a large number of new features, many of which are based on shareware applications that Apple bought and included into the new system. On the newer PowerPC machines, System 7.5 may have stability problems partly due to a new memory manager (which can be turned off), and issues with the handling of errors in the PowerPC code (all PowerPC exceptions map to Type 11). These issues do not affect 68k-architecture machines. System 7.5 is contemporary with Apple's failed Copland effort as well as the release of Windows 95, which coincides with Apple's purchase of several shareware system enhancements to include as new system features.
Mac OS 7.6
Stability improved in PowerPC-based Macs with Mac OS 7.6, which dropped the "System" moniker as a more trademarkable name was needed in order to license the OS to the growing market of third-party Macintosh clone manufacturers. Mac OS 7.6 required 32-bit-clean ROMs, and so it dropped support for every Mac with a 68000 processor, as well as the Mac II, Mac IIx, Mac IIcx, and Mac SE/30.
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 8 was released on July 26, 1997, the same month Steve Jobs became the de facto CEO of Apple. It was mainly released to keep the Mac OS moving forward during a difficult time for Apple. Initially planned as Mac OS 7.7, it was renumbered "8" to exploit a legal loophole and accomplish Jobs's goal of terminating third-party manufacturers' licenses to System 7 and shutting down the Macintosh clone market.
Mac OS 8 added a number of features from the abandoned Copland project, while leaving the underlying operating system unchanged. A multi-threaded Finder was included; files could now be copied in the background. The GUI was changed in appearance to a new shaded greyscale look named Platinum, and the ability to change the appearance themes (also known as skins) was added with a new control panel (though Platinum was the only one shipped). This capability was provided by a new "appearance" API layer within the OS, one of the few significant changes.
Apple sold 1.2 million copies of Mac OS 8 in its first two weeks of availability and 3 million within six months. In light of Apple's financial difficulties at the time, there was a large grassroots movement among Mac users to upgrade and "help save Apple". Even some pirate groups refused to redistribute the OS.
Mac OS 8.1
Mac OS 8.1 introduced an updated version of the Hierarchical File System named HFS+, which fixed many of the limitations of the earlier system and continued to be used in macOS up until macOS High Sierra, when it was replaced with the Apple File System. There are some other interface changes such as separating network features from printing, and some improvements to application switching. However, in underlying technical respects, Mac OS 8 is not very different from System 7.
Mac OS 8.5
Mac OS 8.5 focuses on speed and stability, with most 68k code replaced by modern code native to the PowerPC. It also improved the appearance of the user interface, although the theming feature was cut late in development.
Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9, the last major revision of the classic Mac OS, was released on October 23, 1999. It is generally a steady evolution from Mac OS 8. Early development releases of Mac OS 9 were numbered 8.7.
Mac OS 9 added improved support for AirPort wireless networking. It introduced an early implementation of multi-user support. Though not a true multi-user operating system, Mac OS 9 does allow multiple desktop users to have their own data and system settings. An improved Sherlock search engine added several new search plug-ins. Mac OS 9 also provides a much improved memory implementation and management. AppleScript was improved to allow TCP/IP and networking control. Mac OS 9 also makes the first use of the centralized Apple Software Update to find and install OS and hardware updates.
Other new features included its on-the-fly file encryption software with code signing and Keychain technologies, Remote Networking and File Server packages, and much improved list of USB drivers.
Mac OS 9 also added some transitional technologies to help application developers adopt some Mac OS X features before the introduction of the new OS to the public, to help ease the transition. These included new APIs for the file system and the bundling of the Carbon library that apps could link against instead of the traditional API libraries—apps that were adapted to do this could be run natively on Mac OS X as well. Other changes were made beginning with the Mac OS 9.1 update to allow it to be launched in the Classic Environment within Mac OS X.
The final update to the classic Mac OS was version 9.2.2, released on December 5, 2001.
Transition to Mac OS X
macOS (originally named "Mac OS X" until 2012 and then "OS X" until 2016)
is Apple's current Mac operating system that officially succeeded the classic Mac OS in 2001. Although it was originally marketed as simply "version 10" of Mac OS, it has a history that is largely independent of the earlier Mac OS releases.
The macOS architectural legacy is the successor to Mac OS 9 and the classic Mac OS legacy. However, unlike the classic Mac OS, it is a Unix-based operating system built on NeXTSTEP and technology developed at NeXT from the late 1980s until early 1997, when Apple purchased the company, and its CEO Steve Jobs returned to Apple. macOS also makes use of the BSD codebase and the XNU kernel, and its core set of components is based upon Apple's open source Darwin operating system.
An early version of the operating system, Mac OS X Server 1.0, was released in 1999. It retains the "platinum" appearance from the classic Mac OS and even resembles OPENSTEP in places, with the first version to arrive with the new Aqua user interface. The desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, followed on March 24, 2001, supporting the new Aqua user interface. Since then, several more versions of the operating system have been released. Mac OS X was renamed "OS X" in 2012 and "macOS" in 2016.
Users of the classic Mac OS generally upgraded to Mac OS X, but it was criticized in its early years as more difficult and less user-friendly than the original Mac OS, for the lack of certain features that had not yet been reimplemented in the new OS, for being slower on the same hardware (especially older hardware), and for incompatibilities with the older OS. Because drivers (for printers, scanners, tablets, etc.) written for the older Mac OS were not compatible with Mac OS X, inconsistent program support with the Classic Environment program used to run the older operating system's programs on Mac OS X, and the lack of Mac OS X support for older Apple computers before late 1997; some Macintosh users continued using the older classic Mac OS for a few years after the original release of Mac OS X. Steve Jobs encouraged people to upgrade to Mac OS X by staging a mock funeral for Mac OS 9 at WWDC 2002.
Classic
PowerPC versions of Mac OS X up to and including Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger include a compatibility layer for running older Mac applications, the Classic Environment. Originally codenamed the "blue box", the environment runs a nearly complete Mac OS 9 operating system, version 9.1 or later, as a Mac OS X application. This allows applications that have not been ported to the Carbon API to run on Mac OS X. This is reasonably seamless, though "classic" applications retain their original Mac OS 9 appearance and do not gain the Mac OS X "Aqua" appearance.
Early New World ROM PowerPC-based Macs shipped with Mac OS 9.2 as well as Mac OS X. Mac OS 9.2 had to be installed by the user—it was not installed by default on hardware revisions released after Mac OS X 10.4. Most well-written "classic" Mac OS applications function properly under this environment, but compatibility is assured only if the software was written to be unaware of the actual hardware and to interact solely with the operating system. The Classic Environment is not available on Intel-based Mac systems due to the incompatibility of Mac OS 9 with the x86 hardware.
Emulation
68k emulators
Third-party Macintosh emulators, such as vMac, Basilisk II, and Executor, eventually made it possible to run the classic Mac OS on Intel-based PCs. These emulators were restricted to emulating the 68k series of processors, and as such most couldn't run versions of the Mac OS that succeeded 8.1, which required PowerPC processors. Most also required a Mac ROM image or a hardware interface supporting a real Mac ROM chip; those requiring an image are of dubious legal standing as the ROM image may infringe on Apple's intellectual property.
A notable exception was the Executor commercial software product from Abacus Research & Development, the only product that used 100% reverse-engineered code without the use of Apple technology. It ran extremely quickly but never achieved more than a minor subset of functionality. Few programs were completely compatible and many were extremely crash-prone if they ran at all. Executor filled a niche market for porting 68k Mac applications to x86 platforms; development ceased in 2002 and the source code was released by the author in late 2008. Emulators using Mac ROM images offered near complete Mac OS compatibility, and later versions offered excellent performance as modern x86 processor performance increased exponentially.
Apple included its own Mac 68k emulator that ran seamlessly on all PowerPC-based versions of the classic Mac OS.
PowerPC emulators
As of 2021 the most capable PowerPC emulator is QEMU
In comparison with 68k-emulator development, PowerPC emulation is more complex and requires more CPU power. The emulator is capable of running Classic Mac OS and OS X at full speed with networking and sound in most cases. QEMU has official support for Classic Mac OS version 9.0 through 9.2 and Mac OS X 10.0 up to and including 10.5. QEMU has several advantages over other PowerPC emulators namely supporting a wide range of platforms from Linux to Mac and Windows on current CPU architectures.
Another PowerPC emulator is SheepShaver, which has been around since 1998 for BeOS on the PowerPC platform, but in 2002 was open sourced, and efforts began to port it to other platforms. Originally it was not designed for use on x86 platforms and required an actual PowerPC processor present in the machine it was running on similar to a hypervisor. Although it provides PowerPC processor support, it can run only up to Mac OS 9.0.4 because it does not emulate a memory management unit.
Other examples include ShapeShifter (by the same developer that created SheepShaver), Fusion, PearPC and iFusion. The latter ran classic Mac OS with a PowerPC "coprocessor" accelerator card. Using this method has been said to equal or better the speed of a Macintosh with the same processor, especially with respect to the 68k series due to real Macs running in MMU trap mode, hampering performance.
Apple's Rosetta was a PowerPC emulator allowing Intel-based Macs to run PowerPC MacOS X applications, but it did not support classic Mac OS (9.2.2 or earlier) applications.
Timeline
See also
List of Apple operating systems
Comparison of operating systems
History of the graphical user interface
Inside Macintosh
Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.
List of old Macintosh software
Notes
References
External links
Apple Discussions: Classic Mac OS – Apple's official forum for Classic Mac OS
The Real History of the GUI – An article about the history of GUIs
Apple Macintosh before System 7 – A comprehensive guide to Mac OS releases prior to System 7
Folklore.org – A site of anecdotes shared by the creators of the first Macintosh
The Vintage Mac Museum – Information on Macintosh systems from System 1 to System 7
Macintosh System 1 in your browser – A web-based simulator
Macintosh System 7 in your browser – A web-based simulator
BYTE Magazine September 1986 – A feature on Amiga vs. Macintosh
Apple Inc. software
History of software
Macintosh operating systems
Software version histories
1984 software
Macintosh operating systems development
Discontinued operating systems
Pascal (programming language) software |
46733414 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring%20learning%20with%20errors%20key%20exchange | Ring learning with errors key exchange | In cryptography, a public key exchange algorithm is a cryptographic algorithm which allows two parties to create and share a secret key, which they can use to encrypt messages between themselves. The ring learning with errors key exchange (RLWE-KEX) is one of a new class of public key exchange algorithms that are designed to be secure against an adversary that possesses a quantum computer. This is important because some public key algorithms in use today will be easily broken by a quantum computer if such computers are implemented. RLWE-KEX is one of a set of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms which are based on the difficulty of solving certain mathematical problems involving lattices. Unlike older lattice based cryptographic algorithms, the RLWE-KEX is provably reducible to a known hard problem in lattices.
Background
Since the 1980s the security of cryptographic key exchanges and digital signatures over the Internet has been primarily based on a small number of public key algorithms. The security of these algorithms is based on a similarly small number of computationally hard problems in classical computing. These problems are the difficulty of factoring the product of two carefully chosen prime numbers, the difficulty to compute discrete logarithms in a carefully chosen finite field, and the difficulty of computing discrete logarithms in a carefully chosen elliptic curve group. These problems are very difficult to solve on a classical computer (the type of computer the world has known since the 1940s through today) but are rather easily solved by a relatively small quantum computer using only 5 to 10 thousand of bits of memory. There is optimism in the computer industry that larger scale quantum computers will be available around 2030. If a quantum computer of sufficient size were built, all of the public key algorithms based on these three classically hard problems would be insecure. This public key cryptography is used today to secure Internet websites, protect computer login information, and prevent our computers from accepting malicious software.
Cryptography that is not susceptible to attack by a quantum computer is referred to as quantum safe, or post-quantum cryptography. One class of quantum resistant cryptographic algorithms is based on a concept called "learning with errors" introduced by Oded Regev in 2005. A specialized form of Learning with errors operates within the ring of polynomials over a finite field. This specialized form is called ring learning with errors or RLWE.
There are a variety of cryptographic algorithms which work using the RLWE paradigm. There are public-key encryption algorithms, homomorphic encryption algorithms, and RLWE digital signature algorithms in addition to the public key, key exchange algorithm presented in this article
A key exchange algorithm is a type of public key algorithm which establishes a shared secret key between two communicants on a communications link. The classic example of a key exchange is the Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The exchange consists of one transmission from one end of the line and one transmission from the other end of the link. Diffie–Hellman and Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman are the two most popular key exchange algorithms.
The RLWE Key Exchange is designed to be a "quantum safe" replacement for the widely used Diffie–Hellman and elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman key exchanges that are used to secure the establishment of secret keys over untrusted communications channels. Like Diffie–Hellman and Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman, the Ring-LWE key exchange provides a cryptographic property called "forward secrecy"; the aim of which is to reduce the effectiveness of mass surveillance programs and ensure that there are no long term secret keys that can be compromised that would enable bulk decryption.
Introduction
Starting with a prime integer q, the Ring-LWE key exchange works in the ring of polynomials modulo a polynomial with coefficients in the field of integers mod q (i.e. the ring ). Multiplication and addition of polynomials will work in the usual fashion with results of a multiplication reduced mod .
The idea of using LWE and Ring LWE for key exchange was first proposed and filed at the University of Cincinnati in 2011 by Jintai Ding. The idea comes from the associativity of matrix multiplications, and the errors are used to provide the security. The paper appeared in 2012 after a provisional patent application was filed in 2012. The security of the protocol is proven based on the hardness of solving the LWE problem.
In 2014, Peikert presented a key-transport scheme following the same basic idea of Ding's, where the new idea of sending an additional 1-bit signal for rounding in Ding's construction is also used.
The "new hope" implementation selected for Google's post-quantum experiment, uses Peikert's scheme with variation in the error distribution.
For somewhat greater than 128 bits of security, Singh presents a set of parameters which have 6956-bit public keys for the Peikert's scheme. The corresponding private key would be roughly 14,000 bits. An RLWE version of the classic MQV variant of a Diffie–Hellman key exchange was later published by Zhang et al. in 2014. The security of both key exchanges is directly related to the problem of finding approximate short vectors in an ideal lattice. This article will closely follow the RLWE work of Ding in "A Simple Provably Secure Key Exchange Scheme Based on the Learning with Errors Problem". For this presentation a typical polynomial is expressed as:
The coefficients of this polynomial, the ais, are integers mod q. The polynomial will be the cyclotomic polynomial. When n is a power of 2 then
The RLWE-KEX uses polynomials which are considered "small" with respect to a measure called the "infinity norm." The infinity norm for a polynomial is simply the value of the largest coefficient of the polynomial when the coefficients are considered as integers in Z rather than (i.e.from the set {−(q − 1)/2,..., 0, ... (q − 1)/2} ). The algorithm's security depends on an ability to generate random polynomials which are small with respect to the infinity norm. This is done simply by randomly generating the coefficients for a polynomial (sn-1, ..., s0) which are guaranteed or very likely to be small. There are two common ways to do this:
Using Uniform Sampling – The coefficients of the small polynomial are uniformly sampled from a set of small coefficients. Let b be an integer that is much less than q. If we randomly choose coefficients from the set: { −b, −b + 1, −b + 2. ... −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, ... , b − 2, b − 1, b} the polynomial will be small with respect to the bound (b). Singh suggest using b = 5. Thus coefficients would be chosen from the set {q − 5, q − 4, q − 3, q − 2, q − 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }.
Using Discrete Gaussian Sampling – For an odd value for q, the coefficients are randomly chosen by sampling from the set { −(q − 1)/2 to (q − 1)/2 } according to a discrete Gaussian distribution with mean 0 and distribution parameter σ. The references describe in full detail how this can be accomplished. It is more complicated than uniform sampling but it allows for a proof of security of the algorithm. An overview of Gaussian sampling is found in a presentation by Peikert.
For the rest of this article, the random small polynomials will be sampled according to a distribution which is simply specified as D. Further q will be an odd prime such that q is congruent to 1 mod 4 and 1 mod 2n. Other cases for q and n are thoroughly discussed in "A Toolkit for Ring-LWE Cryptography" and in Singh's "Even More Practical Key Exchange for the Internet using Lattice Cryptography." and another paper by Singh. A fixed public polynomial, a(x), shared by all users of the network. It is deterministically generated from a cryptographically secure source.
Given a(x) as stated, we can randomly choose small polynomials s(x) and e(x) to be the "private key" in a public key exchange. The corresponding public key will be the polynomial p(x) = a(x)s(x) + 2e(x).
The key exchange
The key exchange will take place between two devices. There will be an initiator for the key exchange designated as (I) and a respondent designated as (R). Both I and R know q, n, a(x), and have the ability to generate small polynomials according to the distribution with parameter . The distribution is usually the discrete Gaussian distribution on the ring . The description which follows does not contain any explanation of why the key exchange results in the same key at both ends of a link. Rather, it succinctly specifies the steps to be taken. For a thorough understanding of why the key exchange results in the initiator and responder having the same key, the reader should look at the referenced work by Ding et al.
The key exchange begins with the initiator (I) doing the following:
Initiation:
Generate two polynomials and with small coefficients by sampling from the distribution .
Compute
The initiator sends the polynomial to the Responder.
Response:
Generate two polynomials and with small coefficients by sampling from the distribution .
Compute .
Generate a small from . Compute . Then .
Use the signal function to find . This is computed by applying function on each coefficient of
Respondent side's key stream is calculated, based on the reconciliation information and the polynomial .
The Respondent sends and to the Initiator.
Finish:
Receive and from the Responder.
Sample from and Compute .
Initiator side's key stream is produced as from the reconciliation information and polynomial .
In the above key exchange, is the signal function defined as below:
Define subset of . Here, and denotes the floor and the rounding to the nearest integer respectively.
Function is the characteristic function of the complement of E.
:
is the mod 2 operation to eliminate the error terms defined as follows:
Note that the values of and are only approximately equal. In order to extract a shared key using this approximate equal values, a reconciliation function, also known as a signal function is used. This function indicates the region in which each coefficient of a polynomial in lies and helps to make sure that the error terms in and do not result in different mod q operations.
The methods of reconciliation and key string generation depends on the specific RLWE-KEX scheme in question. Some method is based on modular arithmetic, while others may be based on high-dimension geometry.
If the key exchange worked properly, the initiator's string and the respondent's string will be the same.
Depending on the specifics of the parameters chosen, there is an extremely small probability that this key exchange will fail to produce the same key. Parameters for the key exchange can be chosen to make the probability of failure in the key exchange very small; much less than the probability of undetectable garbles or device failures.
Parameter choices
The RLWE-KEX exchange presented above worked in the Ring of Polynomials of degree n − 1 or less mod a polynomial . The presentation assumed that n was a power of 2 and that q was a prime which was congruent to 1 (mod 2n). Following the guidance given in Peikert's paper, Singh suggested two sets of parameters for the RLWE-KEX.
For 128 bits of security, n = 512, q = 25601, and
For 256 bits of security, n = 1024, q = 40961, and
Because the key exchange uses random sampling and fixed bounds there is a small probability that the key exchange will fail to produce the same key for the initiator and responder. If we assume that the Gaussian parameter σ is and the uniform sampling bound (b) = 5 (see Singh), then the probability of key agreement failure is less than 2−71 for the 128-bit secure parameters and less than 2−91 for the 256-bit secure parameters.
In their November 2015 paper, Alkim, Ducas, Pöppelmann, and Schwabe recommend the following parameters n = 1024, q =12289, and = x1024 + 1. This represents a 70% reduction in public key size over the n = 1024 parameters of Singh, and was submitted to NIST's Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization project under the name NewHope.
Also in their November 2015 paper, Alkim, Ducas, Pöppelmann and Schwabe recommend that the choice of the base polynomial for the key exchange ( a(x) above ) be either generated randomly from a secure random number generator for each exchange or created in a verifiable fashion using a "nothing up my sleeve" or NUMS technique. An example of parameters generated in this way are the prime numbers for the Internet Key Exchange (RFC 2409) which embed the digits of the mathematical constant pi in the digital representation of the prime number. Their first method prevents amortization of attack costs across many key exchanges at the risk of leaving open the possibility of a hidden attack like that described by Dan Bernstein against the NIST elliptic curves. The NUMS approach is open to amortization but generally avoids the Bernstein attack if only common mathematical constants such as pi and e are used.
Key exchange security
The security of this key exchange is based on the underlying hardness of ring learning with errors problem that has been proven to be as hard as the worst case solution to the shortest vector problem (SVP) in an ideal lattice. The best method to gauge the practical security of a given set of lattice parameters is the BKZ 2.0 lattice reduction algorithm. According to the BKZ 2.0 algorithm the key exchange parameters listed above will provide greater than 128 or 256 bits of security, respectively.
Implementations
In 2014 Douglas Stebila made a patch for OpenSSL 1.0.1f. based on his work and others published in "Post-quantum key exchange for the TLS protocol from the ring learning with errors problem." Software implementing the work of Singh is found on GitHub at https://github.com/vscrypto/ringlwe.
Other approaches
A variant of the approach described above is an authenticated version in the work of Zhang, Zhang, Ding, Snook and Dagdelen in their paper, "Post Quantum Authenticated Key Exchange from Ideal Lattices." The concept of creating what has been called a Diffie–Hellman-like Key Exchange using lattices with a reconciliation function appears to have first been presented by French researchers Aguilar, Gaborit, Lacharme, Schrek, and Zemor at PQCrypto 2010 in their talk, "Noisy Diffie–Hellman Protocols."
In November 2015, Alkim, Ducas, Pöppelmann, and Schwabe built on the prior work of Peikert and used what they believe is a more conservative costing of lattice attacks to recommend parameters. Software based on the work of Alkim, Ducas, Pöppelmann, and Schwabe is found on GitHub at https://github.com/tpoeppelmann/newhope
See also
Post-quantum cryptography
Lattice-based cryptography
Ideal lattice cryptography
Ring learning with errors signature
Ring learning with errors
References
Cryptographic algorithms
Post-quantum cryptography
Lattice-based cryptography |
46743384 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerio | Peerio | Peerio was a cross-platform end-to-end encrypted application that provided secure messaging, file sharing, and cloud file storage. Peerio was available as an application for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux. Peerio (Legacy) was originally released on 14 January 2015, and was replaced by Peerio 2 on 15 June 2017. The app is discontinued.
Messages and user files stored on the Peerio cloud were protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning the data was encrypted in a way that could not be read by third parties, such as Peerio itself or its service providers. Security was provided by a single permanent key-password, which in Peerio was called an "Account Key".
The company, Peerio Technologies Inc., was founded in 2014 by Vincent Drouin. The intent behind Peerio was to provide a security program that is easier to use than the PGP standard.
Peerio was acquired by WorkJam, a digital workplace solutions provide, on January 13, 2019.
Features
Peerio allowed users to share encrypted messages and files in direct messages or groups that Peerio called "rooms".
Peerio "rooms" were offered as a team-oriented group chat, allowing administrative functionality to add and remove other users from the group chat.
Peerio allowed users to store encrypted files online, offering limited cloud storage for free with optional paid upgrades.
Peerio messages and files persist between logins and hardware, differing from ephemeral encrypted messaging apps which do not retain message or file history between logins or different devices.
Peerio supported application based multi-factor authentication.
Peerio allowed users to share animated GIFs.
Security
End-to-End Encryption
Peerio utilized end-to-end encryption and it was applied by default to all message and file data. End-to-end encryption is intended to encrypt data in a way that only the sender and intended recipients are able to decrypt, and thus read, the data.
Taken from Peerio's privacy policy:
"Peerio utilizes the NaCl (pronounced "salt") cryptographic framework, which itself uses the following cryptographic primitives:
X25519 for public key agreement over elliptic curves.
ed25519 for public key signatures.
XSalsa20 for encryption and confidentiality.
Poly1305 for ensuring the integrity of encrypted data.
Additionally, Peerio uses scrypt for memory-hard key derivation and BLAKE2s is used for various hashing operations.
For in-transit encryption, Peerio Services used Transport Layer Security (TLS) with best-practice cipher suite configuration, including support for perfect forward secrecy (PFS). You can view a detailed and up-to-date independent review of Peerio's TLS configuration on SSL Labs."
Code Audits
Prior to Peerio's initial release, the software was audited by the German security firm Cure53, which found only non-security related bugs, all of which were fixed prior to the applications release.
According to Peerio's website, the application was also audited in March 2017 by Cure53.
Open Source
Peerio was partly open source and published code publicly on GitHub
Bug Bounty
Peerio offered a bug bounty, offering cash rewards for anyone who reports security vulnerabilities.
Peerio (Legacy)
The first iteration of Peerio, Peerio (Legacy), was developed by Nadim Kobeissi and Florencia Herra-Vega and was released on 14 January 2015 and was closed on 8 January 2018.
Peerio (Legacy) was a free application, available for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and as a Google Chrome extension. It offered end-to-end encryption, which is enabled by default. The encryption used the miniLock open-source security standard, which was also developed by Kobeissi.
On 15 June 2017, Peerio 2 was launched as the successor to Peerio (Legacy). According to the company's blog, Peerio 2 is purported to be a "radical overhaul" of the original application's core technology. Claimed benefits in comparison to Peerio (Legacy) include increased speed, support for larger file transfers (up to 7000GB), and a re-designed user interface. Peerio also stated an added focus towards businesses looking for encrypted team collaboration software.
References
Cryptographic software
Internet privacy software
Privacy software
Open standards |
46744320 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Array%20Networks | Array Networks | Array Networks is an American networking hardware company. It sells network traffic encryption tools.
Array Networks was founded in 2000 by Lawrence Lu and is based in Milpitas, California. Originally called ClickArray Networks, it was renamed Array Networks in 2001 by then-incoming CEO Don Massaro who said the longer name "sounded too dot-commy". It received funding from the venture capital firm U.S. Venture Partners and the private equity firm H&Q Asia Pacific.
On May 13, 2009, Array Networks became the first non-Taiwan company to be listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company sold 54 million shares that had a total value of about $79 million. In 2009, 43% of the company's market share was in China, and its main product type sold there consisted of SSL VPN devices. It also had 200 employees in China, which CEO Michael Zhao said made China a "natural choice" for an IPO, In comparison, the company had 70 employees in Silicon Valley. but because China did not allow non-Chinese companies on their exchange, he narrowed the choices down to the NASDAQ and the Taiwan Stock Exchange. He chose the Taiwan Stock Exchange for two reasons: Array Networks had a strong business presence in Asia, and Taiwan Stock Exchange's listing fees were at least one third less than the NASDAQ's.
In 2011, CRN Magazine noted that most of Array Networks' sales is from Asia and that the company is "particularly strong" in China, Japan, and India.
In 2018, Array Networks was named to CIO Review's Top 10 Networking Companies of 2018.
Products
APV series application delivery controllers
In 2008, Array Networks first released its AppVelocity devices that consisted of application delivery controllers for SSL acceleration, load balancing and traffic managementat layers 2-7 for enterprise data centers and Web sites. Later devices were introduced in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
AG series VPN gateways
Array sells VPN gateways.
Remote Desktop Access
Array sells DesktopDirect which enables remote desktop access in a web browser.
Secure Mobile Access
Array sells MotionPro, a product for remote desktop access via personal mobile devices.
aCelera WAN optimization controller
In March 2013, Array acquired the assets of WOC pioneer Certeon, including development and support operations, and software-based WAN optimization products including the aCelera Virtual Appliance, aCelera for Windows Server and aCelera Mobile.
The aCelera appliance can be used to accelerate application traffic for Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM, Dell, file transfers, backup and replication and others.
References
External links
Official website
Companies based in Milpitas, California
Networking companies of the United States
Networking hardware companies
Technology companies established in 2001 |
46781813 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Rust | John Rust | John Philip Rust (born May 23, 1955) is an American economist and econometrician.
John Rust received his PhD from MIT in 1983 and taught at the University of Wisconsin, Yale University and University of Maryland before joining Georgetown University in 2012.
John Rust was awarded Frisch Medal in 1992
and became the fellow of Econometric Society in 1993.
John Rust is best known as one of the founding fathers of the
structural estimation of dynamic discrete choice
models
and the developer of the nested fixed point (NFXP) maximum likelihood estimator which is widely used
in structural econometrics.
However, he had published papers on broad range of topics including
equilibrium in the markets of durable goods,
social security, retirement, disability insurance,
nuclear power industry,
real estate economics,
rental car industry,
transportation research,
auction markets,
computational economics,
dynamic games.
Education and career
John Rust was born in Wisconsin on May 23, 1955. He graduated from
Waukesha High School in 1973, completed B.A. in Mathematics in 1977 at the
University of Pennsylvania, and received his Ph.D. in Economics from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983.
His dissertation titled “Stationary Equilibrium in a Market for Durable Assets”
under the supervision of Daniel McFadden was published as Econometrica article in 1985.
After graduating from University of Pennsylvania in 1977, John
Rust worked as research analyst for Morgan Stanley in New York City for two years.
His first academic job was at the University of Wisconsin (assistant professor, 1983-1987,
associate professor, 1987-1989, and full professor, 1990-1996), after which he had professorial
positions at Yale University (1996-2001) and University of Maryland (2001-2011) before
starting his current affiliation with Georgetown University.
John Rust had been affiliated with a number of governmental bodies, including
Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System (research consultant, 1995),
Panel of Expert Reviewers of Social Security Administration’s MINT Model (member, 1998-1999),
Technical Panel of Social Security Advisory Board (member, 1998-1999),
Long Term Modeling Advisory Group U.S. Congressional Budget Office (member, 2001-2004),
Social Security Administration (advisor for demonstration project resulting
from the 1999 Work Incentives Improvement Act, 2000-2003).
He has also been a member of Steering Committee of the Health and Retirement Study at
University of Michigan (2000-2002),
senior advisor at The Brattle Group (since 2004) and
fellow of TIAA-CREF Institute, New York (since 2005).
Research and contributions
Dynamic discrete choice models
Rust is best known for developing methods for analyzing dynamic discrete choice. In his best-known paper, he modeled the decision of Harold Zurcher, superintendent of the Madison, Wisconsin Metropolitan Bus Company, whether and when to replace the engines of buses in his fleet, and developed the nested fixed point algorithm to estimate the model using data on when the buses were replaced. This paper is one of the first dynamic stochastic models of discrete choice estimated using real data, and continues to serve as classical example of the problems of this type. The methods Rust developed have been used to study dynamic economic decisions in other contexts, including retirement and occupational choice.
Methodological debate
Although John Rust is a prominent structural econometrician,
in the ongoing debate
between adepts of the structural and
non-structural econometric approaches,
he has expressed a balanced position.
I really do not understand the widespread antipathy towards structural econometrics. I do not see any basis for the belief that the reduced form approaches adopted by statistical modelers is more justified or legitimate (or is less subjective) than the structural econometric approach adopted by economic modelers. Both types of modelers have to impose strong assumptions, and it seems all that we can say is that these models and the underlying identifying assumptions are just different.
It really isn’t productive to criticize the status quo in economics these days, nor is it productive to try to promote the virtues of structural estimation. Criticism only encourages the practitioners to rally around the flag. I think it is equally a waste of time to try to engage in salesmanship.
Instead, in his review of "The Limits of Inference without Theory" by Kenneth Wolpin
titled "The Limits of Inference with Theory"
John Rust brings attention to the limits of inference inherent to any econometric approach,
and argues that collection of better data and closer cooperation between structural and the
experimental economics will lead to more useful empirical knowledge.
My main message is though there is ample room for getting far more knowledge from limited data (and even more when we have access to “big data” ) by optimally combining inductive and deductive approaches to inference and learning, it is important to recognize that there are a number of inherent limits to inference that may be insuperable. These limits were not adequately addressed in Wolpin’s book, and motivated the title of this review.
John Rust holds a stronger position on the issue of disconnect between theoretical economics and econometrics
from the real world (empirical) problems.
At the "Causality in the Social Sciences Conference" held at Stanford University on December 5–6, 2014
he gave a talk titled
""
where he pointed out that development of complicated econometric theories is rewarded disproportionally
to their practical usefulness.
Professional service
In 2004 John Rust co-founded the software development company Technoluddities, Inc.
which operates several web-based software products widely used by the economic profession.
Technoluddities, Inc. owns trademarks to three of these services, namely Editorial Express,
Conference Maker and Head Hunter.
Editorial Express
Editorial Express
is web-based editorial tracking software that can enable
"paper-free" operation of the key editorial functions of a journal.
Some of the features of this system include guaranteed low pricing, secure operations and data
encryption, electronic submission of papers and referee reports, easy assignment of editors and referees, built-in email
notification and automatic reminders, statistical functions and reporting.
Editorial express is regarded by many as one of the best journal management systems.
Editorial Express used by many leading journals in economics including
Econometrica,
Quarterly Journal of Economics,
RAND Journal of Economics,
Review of Economic Studies
Journal of Applied Econometrics,
International Economic Review,
Review of Economics and Statistics,
Journal of Finance and other.
Conference Maker
Conference Maker
is web-based software for organizing international conferences.
Conference Maker allows a program chair (or several co-chairs) and their selected program committee
to handle the submission process in a decentralized fashion. All members of the program committee can
log in at any time via secure password protected accounts and can view all submissions online.
Program committee members are assigned certain subsets of submissions (usually designated by the person making the submission, unless overwritten by program committee members) and can make accept/reject decisions by clicking a button.
There is also a simple interface for forming sessions, searching for discussants and session chairs,
posting/updating the conference program to an automatically generated web page,
and sending mass emails to arbitrarily selected subgroups of users.
Over 625 international conferences have used Conference Maker since it was introduced in 2001,
more than 150,000 submissions have been made to Conference Maker for these various
conferences and over 290,000 people worldwide have used it.
Head Hunter
Head Hunter
is web-based academic recruiting software specially designed as a "back end interface" to the
EconJobMarket.org.
Some of the features of this system include paperless operation, built-in scheduling module,
easy setup, high security, electronic applications and reference letters.
Head Hunter is one of the internal interfaces (or "back ends") which facilitate for the
departments the work with the applications and reference letters collected by
EconJobMarket.org centralized application collection system.
EconJobMarket.org
EconJobMarket.org (EJM)
is a nonprofit organization that facilitates the flow of information in the economics
job market by providing a secure central repository for the files of job-market candidates
(including papers, reference letters, and other materials) accessed on line.
EJM was founded in 2007 by Martin Osborne, John Rust, and Joel Watson, and is
run by a group of academic economists who volunteer their time and effort.
EconJobMarket.org is endorsed by
The Econometric Society,
Canadian Economics Association,
European Economic Association,
Eurasia Business and Economics Society,
Society for Economic Dynamics,
Verein für Socialpolitik,
VOX and
walras.org
The theoretical foundation for the creation of EconJobMarket.org
is described in Chapter 7 of The Handbook of Market Design.
EJM does not attempt to fundamentally alter the decentralized “endogenous search and matching” process by which the economics job market currently operates. Since there is unrestricted entry of intermediaries similar to EJM and a number of for-profit and non-profit organizations are currently competing in this market, we discuss the problem of market fragmentation that can occur when too many organizations attempt to intermediate trade in the market. Contrary to conventional wisdom in industrial organization theory, we show that unrestricted entry and competition of intermediaries can result in suboptimal outcomes. We discuss conditions under which the market might be improved if there is sufficient coordination to promote information sharing, such as establishing a dominant information clearinghouse that operates as a non-profit public service — a role EJM is trying to fulfill.
EconJobMarket.org grew in various significant characteristics
(number of job adds posted, number of recruiters' accounts, number of applicants' accounts,
number of applications transmitted, number of recommenders' accounts, number of recommendations transmitted)
between its inception and 2011 at an average annual rate between 79% and 194%.
Selected publications
Solution and estimation of structural dynamic models
Market equilibrium, durable goods
Retirement and disability
Rental cars
Nuclear power plants
Philosophy of science
Books
See also
List of economists
References
External links
John Rust personal webpage
John Rust at IDEAS.RePeC.org
NFXP software and manual
Technoluddities, Inc.
Editorial Express
Conference Maker
Head Hunter
EconJobMarket.org
Living people
1955 births
Econometricians
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
Yale University faculty
University of Maryland, College Park faculty
Georgetown University faculty
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
University of Michigan people |
46783045 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features%20new%20to%20Windows%2010 | Features new to Windows 10 | Windows 10 introduced a number of new elements, including the option to use a touch-optimized interface (known as tablet mode) or a traditional desktop interface similar to that of Windows 7 along with live tiles from Windows 8. However, unlike previous versions of Windows, where most, if not all, major features for that release were completed by its RTM, Windows 10 continues to receive major features and changes beyond its initial release to market. Microsoft describes Windows 10 as an 'operating system as a service' that will receive ongoing updates to its features and functionality. This is supplemented with the ability for enterprise environments to receive non-critical updates at a slower pace, and to use long-term support milestones that will only receive critical updates, such as security patches, over their ten-year lifespan of support.
Version 1507
Windows 10, codenamed "Threshold 1", is the first release of Windows 10. It carries the build number 10.0.10240. While the build itself doesn't contain the version number, Microsoft retroactively named this version 1507, standing for July 2015 and matching the versioning scheme for later updates. "Threshold 1" was announced on an event on September 30, 2014 with a first preview following the day after. The final release was made available to Windows Insiders on July 15, 2015, followed by a public release on July 29, 2015 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
The Threshold 1 release of Windows 10 is only supported for users of the Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB).
New feature indicated for this release are only those added since Windows 8.1 Update 1, released in April 2014.
Bundled apps
The Mail app adds user-configurable swipe gesture controls and POP3 email support. Google Calendar support is added to the Calendar app. The Settings app is expanded to have similar functionality as the Control Panel, albeit with a Metro-style user interface. The Map app can download maps for offline use.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is the new browser for Windows 10 and is the successor to Internet Explorer 11, although Internet Explorer will remain for compatibility and legacy purposes. Cortana has been integrated into Edge, accessible by the option "Ask Cortana" in the right click menu, as well as a Reading View and the ability to write notes directly on web pages and save to OneNote. A Reading List feature has also been added, where users can save articles or other content to be accessed and read later. Microsoft Edge also includes a Share button on its toolbar where tapping or clicking on it will bring up the system Share panel, where users will be able to share a webpage to installed applications such as Reading List or third-party apps such as Facebook and Twitter. Since its release, Microsoft Edge has scored 402 out of 555 points on HTML5test.
Development platform
Windows 10 introduced Universal Windows Platform (UWP), an extension of the Windows Runtime platform which was originally introduced with Windows 8. UWP emphasizes a core set of APIs common to all variations of the operating system, enabling the ability to code a single application with adaptations (such as user interface differences) for different device families and states, including desktops and laptops, tablets, smartphones (via Windows 10 Mobile), Xbox One, and other new device classes such as Surface Hub and HoloLens. An application may also react to the available displays and input on a device; when connected to a monitor or a suitable docking station, a UWP app on a smartphone can take on the appearance of the app on a PC. Information can also be synchronized between versions of an app for different devices, such as notifications and licensing.
Gaming
DirectX 12
Windows 10 includes DirectX 12 alongside WDDM 2.0. Unveiled March 2014 at GDC, DirectX 12 aims to provide "console-level efficiency" with "closer to the metal" access to hardware resources, and reduced CPU and graphics driver overhead. Most of the performance improvements are achieved through low-level programming, which can reduce single-threaded CPU bottlenecking caused by abstraction through higher level APIs. The performance gains achieved by allowing developers direct access to GPU resources is similar to other low-level rendering initiatives such as AMD's Mantle, Apple's Metal API or the OpenGL successor, Vulkan. WDDM 2.0 introduces a new virtual memory management and allocation system to reduce workload on the kernel-mode driver.
Xbox One integration
Windows 10 brings more updates to the Xbox app introduced in Windows 8. Games from the Xbox One can be streamed to any Windows 10 device excluding smartphones.
Game Bar and game DVR
Windows 10 introduces the Game Bar, which provides screenshot and video capture functionality for Windows games. Users can invoke the game bar, record gameplay, or take a screenshot using the appropriate keyboard shortcuts. Windows 10 can also continuously capture gameplays in the background; this allows the user to request that the last few users defined moments of gameplay be saved to the hard disk. This is useful if a user wants to save and/or share a moment of gameplay but did not think to explicitly record it beforehand.
The Game Bar was later upgraded into a larger overlay, which now features "widgets" windows for functionality such as the user's Xbox friends list, audio settings, and system performance information.
Shell and user interface
Windows 10 also allows web apps and desktop software (using either Win32 or .NET Framework), to be packaged for distribution on Windows Store. Desktop software distributed through Windows Store is packaged using the App-V system to allow sandboxing. Web apps are executed from remote servers, and have access to Windows functions such as notifications and camera access. As with Windows 8, locally packaged web apps can be written using HTML and WinJS.
Action Center
What was once called "Action Center" in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and their successor is now called Security and Maintenance. The title of "Action Center" in Windows 10 is usurped by a sidebar that provides a list of received notifications and a group of "Quick actions" buttons for different settings areas. It is accessed by clicking the Notifications icon in the system tray, or swiping from the right of the screen on touchscreens.
Command line
Windows 10 brings improvements to the system's command-line interface. Unlike in previous versions of Windows NT, the Win32 console windows can now be resized without any restrictions. It can be made to cover the full screen by pressing the combination on keyboard. Microsoft also enabled the use of standard keyboard shortcuts, such as those for cut, copy, and paste, within the console. Word wrapping and keyboard shortcuts to move the caret, select and manipulate text have become available. Other features such as word wrap and transparency were also included. The user has the option to disable the new features and return to the legacy console if they wish.
Continuum
Continuum is the blanket title for a group of features on Windows 10 that are designed to enable smoother transitions between a default interface mode designed for use with a keyboard and mouse, and an interface designed for touchscreen environments, especially on hybrid devices such as laplets. Enabling "Tablet mode" switches the primary interface to a full screen version of the Start menu, and opens all applications in a maximized view by default. The taskbar is also modified, adding a Back button next to the Start button, and by default, hiding buttons for opened and pinned applications. Task View is used as the primary means of switching programs. Windows can prompt to switch between these two modes, or automatically do so, if certain events occur, such as plugging in a keyboard or mouse to a tablet, switching a laplet to its laptop state, or vice versa.
Cortana
Windows 10 has brought the Cortana assistant from Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10. By default, Cortana appears as a search pane on the taskbar, but can be changed into a button, like in tablet mode, and can be activated by voice using the command "Hey Cortana", when a user searches the Start menu, or when a user searches the Cortana search pane. With Cortana, users can ask Cortana questions about the weather, calendar events, and other types of notifications, along with online information. Cortana currently requires a Microsoft Account to function.
Start Menu
Windows 10 reintroduced the start menu as seen in versions of Windows prior to 8. However, unlike these versions, the new start menu includes live tile features from Windows 8. It is possible to resize the Start menu and view recently added and most used applications. It can also be made full screen for tablet users or users that prefer a Windows 8-like experience. The right hand side of the Start menu can be used to pin tiles. The menu can contain a limited amount of columns, depending on the screen resolution. These columns can be divided in groups that can all have their own title. Every group is divided into 6 or 8 other columns, depending on the user's settings, to allow either 6 or 8 small sized tiles next to each other.
Task View
Task View is a task switching and virtual desktop system, accessible via the taskbar button, keyboard shortcut , or swiping from the left of a touchscreen. Activating Task View shows a zoomed display of all windows currently opened on a specific monitor; clicking on a window switches to it. Task View can also be displayed when a window is snapped to half the screen or three windows are snapped to fourths of the screen, prompting for a window to occupy the remainder of the screen. Task View also allows the creation of virtual workspaces; windows can be dragged into and out of these workspaces.
System Settings
The modern Settings app from Windows 8 continues to evolve in Windows 10, incorporating more system setting configuration functionality from the Windows Control Panel. The ultimate goal is to make the Settings app feature complete, obviating the need for the Control Panel.
The Push-button reset function has been changed to utilize files from the current Windows installation to rebuild the system rather than a separate recovery image. System updates carry over into the new installation and do not have to be re-downloaded. The separate "Refresh" option is removed; users are now given explicit choices within the Reset process to remove all personal files and applications, keep personal files but remove applications, or perform a full factory reset.
Security
MAC Address Randomization in WiFi has been introduced to try to prevent third parties from using the MAC address to track devices.
Windows Hello
Windows Hello is a feature on Windows 10 that allows users to unlock the device with a user's fingerprint, iris scan, or face. It is an alternate option for signing in. Long passwords are hard to remember, so users use Windows Hello. There are two ways to unlock the device.
Recognition
This feature uses IR camera to scan the user's face, similar to Apple's Face ID, you can unlock the computer with it. Although you can use an external IR camera, computer manufacturers today are integrating IR cameras. Touch recognition allow users to touch a button on the computer.
Version 1511 (November Update)
Windows 10 November Update, or Windows 10 Version 1511, codenamed "Threshold 2", is the first major update to Windows 10. It carries the build number 10.0.10586 and version 1511, referencing its date of release, November 2015. The first preview was released on August 18, 2015. The final release was made available to Windows Insiders on November 3, 2015, followed by a public release on November 12, 2015 to existing Windows 10 users, and as a free upgrade from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Unlike the initial release of Windows, this branch was also made available to existing Windows Phone 8.1-devices and the Xbox One and as a preview release to Windows Server 2016, and was pre-installed on new Windows 10 Mobile-devices like the Microsoft Lumia 950.
The Threshold 2 release of Windows 10 is supported for users of the Current Branch for Businesses (CBB)
The changes below highlight features new since the "Threshold 1" release of Windows 10.
Bundled Apps
Windows Feedback app now allows sharing of feedback.
Mail and Calendar apps now support dark and light theme, with various accent color option. External images can be set to automatically download, and Digital Signature, S/MIME Encryption are now supported
Introduces Skype Messaging, Skype Video, and Skype Phone UWP apps.
Update to the Xbox App
Find friends using Facebook
Record voice while recording gameplay using Windows 10's Game DVR feature
Browse the Xbox One and Windows 10 games store directly from the Xbox app
Compare game achievement progress with other Xbox Live users
Use the Xbox app for entering text on the Xbox One console
Updating activity feed and online friends list in real-time
Other built-in apps have been refreshed with features and bug fixes
Microsoft Edge
New features (e.g. pointer lock, Canvas blending modes, <meter> element, etc.) in Microsoft Edge
Object RTC API now available in Microsoft Edge
Tab previews on hover
Added media casting in Microsoft Edge, excluding protected content
Ask Cortana works inside PDFs in Microsoft Edge
Miscellaneous
Compression of unused memory pages.
New environment variable editor
Enabled Nested Virtualization
Windows Spotlight now enabled for the Pro edition. It was previously only available for the Home edition.
Find my Device
Shell and user interface
Cortana
Cortana is now available in Australia, Canada, India, and Japan.
Users no longer need to sign into the PC with a Microsoft Account. They can simply log into Cortana separately.
Users can make handwritten reminder in Cortana's notebook.
Cortana can now send SMS through the desktop, or notify the user of missed calls.
Desktop
Window snapping has been improved to allow auto resizing of the second snapped app when the first snapped app is resized. This only applies when two apps are snapped side-by-side (rather than when apps are snapped in the corners).
More icons have been updated.
Start menu
The Start menu can now be set to house four columns of medium-sized tiles per group.The default is still three columns, same as that of the initial version of Windows 10.
The context menu for an app icon or tile includes Jumplist support. The context menu items themselves have been reorganized, with some bearing icons.
Suggested Windows store apps now show up on start.
Tablet mode
Windows 10's "snap assist" feature has been updated for tablet mode. Now, when two apps are snapped and a third app is launched, the user will be asked to select one of the currently two snapped apps with which to replace the newly launched.
Improvements have also been made to "task view" in tablet mode to allow the user to drag open apps to the side of the screen to snap them or to the bottom of the screen to close them directly from task view.
System settings
Added option to turn off the Windows background picture on the sign-in screen.
Window titlebar can now sport the user's chosen accent color. By default, the titlebar is white, but with this update, enabling color for taskbar, start menu, and Action Center also enables the accent color on the titlebar.
Windows 10 can now be activated using Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 product keys.
The last printer used is automatically set as default printer; this behavior can be turned off. Ability to set default printer by network location is removed.
The settings app hosts a central location to manage connected accounts.
Work Access enables devices to connect to Azure ID or enroll in a Mobile device management infrastructure.
Time zones can be set automatically.
Call History and Email added to privacy settings.
Installed apps can be moved to a different storage device using the settings app. Furthermore, new apps can be set to automatically install on a selected storage device.
Version 1607 (Anniversary Update)
Windows 10 Anniversary Update, or Windows 10 Version 1607, codenamed "Redstone 1", is the second major update to Windows 10 and the first of the 2 major updates that were given the "Redstone" codename. It was released on July 29, 2016.
Bundled apps
Messaging Everywhere allows users to send SMS from their PC through their Windows 10 Mobile or Android phones
New Skype Preview UWP app
New Connect app which extends Continuum related capabilities
"Feedback Hub" app merges previously separate apps, "Insider Hub" and "Windows Feedback". Users can now comment on feedback in the Feedback Hub
More lightweight, scalable, and consistent UI, as well as underlying architecture improvements, and new features in maps app
Microsoft Edge
Support for browser extensions, which can either be installed from the Windows Store or be sideloaded from external sources
New history menu when right clicking the forward or backward buttons
Improvements to favorites, downloads, and history
Pinning tabs, so that they stay open
Experimental VP9 support
"Paste and go" and "Paste and search" options in the context menu
Accessibility tree view, DOM API profiling, and extension debugging for F12 Developer Tools
Default parameters, Async/await, Object.values, and Object.entries for JavaScript
Drag and drop support for the upload feature
Importing browser favorites from Mozilla Firefox
Notifying about downloads in progress in the Action Center
Support for changing the default location
Development platform
Universal Windows Platform apps can now support extensions, allowing for add-ons and DLCs for such apps and games, respectively. Furthermore, these add-ons can be managed from the Windows Settings app.
Windows Subsystem for Linux
The anniversary update for Windows 10 adds Windows Subsystem for Linux. This allows the Ubuntu user space to run natively on Windows. The subsystem translate Linux system call that Ubuntu uses to those of Windows NT kernel. This allows the Bash and other Ubuntu command line apps to run within the Windows console. There is, however, the interoperability restriction: Bash cannot run Windows apps and Windows cannot run Linux software.
Project Centennial
Project Centennial allows Win32 and .NET apps to be repackaged with APPX and allow them to use the full set of Windows Runtime APIs. This will also allow these apps be distributed through the Windows Store.
Action Center
Icon is now on the far right corner, past the clock, and also has animation whenever a new notification appears
Similar notifications will be grouped together, instead of all shown individually
Quick Actions can now be added, removed, and rearranged
Wi-Fi Quick Action now takes the user to the “Network” flyout instead of toggling On/Off status
Action Center now notifies users about app updates/installations from the Windows Store
Priority levels can now be set for app notifications in the Action Center
Desktop
Controls in app previews on the taskbar have been redesigned
Taskbar clock is now integrated with the Calendar app for showing events
Clock now shows on all monitors in a multi-monitor setup
Badges with number of notifications are now available for UWP apps pinned on the taskbar
Taskbar settings moved to Settings app
Volume flyout now allows users to switch between multiple audio output devices
Virtual desktops can now be switched using touchpads by swiping four fingers to either side
Windows can now be pinned to allow them to show up on all virtual desktops
Command line
Improved scaling on high-DPI displays
Better font selection
Improved rendering for international characters
Cursor rendering and hiding improvements
Improved background color painting
Improved scrolling for nano & EMACS editors
Cortana
Cortana can now answer simple questions without signing into Cortana with a Microsoft Account
Cortana in Spanish (Mexico), Portuguese (Brazil), and French (Canada)
Music search button is now accessible from Cortana's main screen
Cortana will now display reminders of commitments made via Email and of meetings that are urgent or outside of normally scheduled times
Cortana will inform users on PC if their Cortana-enabled mobile device is low on battery
Cortana for PC now supports Find My Phone, including the ability to ring the phone regardless of volume settings
Cortana can share map directions from PC to a Cortana-enabled mobile device, and vice versa
Cortana setup is now more simplified and automated
Cortana now works on the lock screen with limited functionality such as setting reminders and searching
Reminders can now be set using pictures or on content sent from contacts
Search feature can now search for files in OneDrive
Cortana's reminder is now a share target for any apps that use Windows share contract
Lock screen
Email addresses are now hidden while device is locked
Media controls show on top of lock screen
Start menu
Most used apps list and All Apps list merged into a single view and elevated to top of Start UI
Moved Power, Settings, and File Explorer to be always visible in the left rail of Start menu
Recently added section now shows 3 entries by default instead of 1
Any additional folders the user has chosen to appear on the Start menu will now be immediately available without the use of a hamburger menu
Tablet mode
Full-screen All Apps list is brought back
Added an option to only auto-hide the taskbar in Tablet Mode
Windows Ink Workspace
A new workspace environment for pen users. It includes virtual sticky notes on which a pen could be used to take notes. Sticky notes features optical character recognition (OCR) to highlight relevant text that can be used by Cortana. The workspace also includes a sketchpad, ability to take a screenshot and draw on it, and a virtual ruler.
System settings
It is now possible to change the default title bar color (for applications not using a custom color) without altering the default color of Taskbar, Start menu, and Action Center.
Universal dark mode has been added, allowing users to globally set whether UWP apps render in dark or light mode.
Taskbar properties should now be set using the Settings app rather than its own properties dialogue box.
All pages in the Settings app now have individual icons associated with them.
Pen settings page now includes ability to adjust pen shortcuts, an option to ignore touch input when using the pen, and Windows Ink Workspace settings.
Apps can now be reset if they become corrupted.
Windows Insider Program settings has been given its own page.
Battery usage and battery saver are now on a "Battery" page in Settings, with extended features for managing individual apps.
Windows Update now has an "Active hours" setting that prevents automatic restarts during the set time. "Active hours" is a continuous period of time, with a maximum length of 12 hours.
Users can test network speed directly from within the Settings app.
Groups of temporary files can be selected for removal within Storage inside the Settings app.
Miscellaneous
Kernel version numbers will now be consistent with Windows 10 Mobile
Windows Defender can now scan offline
Redesigned all emoji to be more consistent with the new design scheme
Credential and User Account Control UIs aesthetically updated, as well as added the ability to sign in with Windows Hello, a PIN, or certificates
The update progress experiences for updates and upgrades to new builds, are now similar
The Blue Screen of Death now includes a QR code for easier troubleshooting
Added one-handed kana touch keyboard for Japanese text typing
Improved prediction capability, typing history management, cloud suggestions, and performance in Japanese IME
Improved reliability of the Chinese IME
Version 1703 (Creators Update)
Windows 10 Creators Update, or Windows 10 Version 1703, codenamed "Redstone 2", is a feature update to Windows 10 released on April 11, 2017. The first preview for this release was seeded out to Windows Insiders on August 11, 2016
The Redstone 2 release of Windows 10 is currently in the development branch and available for Windows Insiders.
The changes below highlights features new since the Redstone 1 release.
Bundled apps
Microsoft Edge
Ability to set a particular website as a reminder in Cortana by using the browser's "Snooze" feature.
Improvements in handling pages with heavy use of text input that results in smoother performance in sites like TweetDeck
Ability to Export favorites as HTML file and the ability to import favorites from HTML file.
Miscellaneous
Structural improvements to OneCore
Windows Delivery Optimizations can now seed OS and App updates by peer-to-peer means to reduce server bandwidth.
Pin input is possible with numeric keypad even when Num Lock is off.
Shell and user interface
Tutorial banners are added to File Explorer
Introductory Message in Action Center
System Settings
Updated Wi-Fi settings page that unifies it across PCs and Mobile editions of Windows 10.
"Windows Anywhere", a feature that enables users to synchronize Windows settings across their devices.
Version 1803 (April 2018 Update)
Windows 10 April 2018 Update, or Windows 10 version 1803, is the fifth feature update to Windows 10.
Timeline: A new feature to get a chronological view of the activities the user was previously doing and to switch back to those activities. Edge, File Explorer, Maps, and other built-in applications include support for Timeline. Any application written for Windows can interact with Timeline to give the system visibility into individual documents the user worked on inside that application.
Windows Hello: Initial set up of Hello can be performed from the lock screen.
Bluetooth: A new "Quick Pairing" capability that reduces the number of steps required to pair a nearby Bluetooth device. A toast notification is shown when a compatible device is near the computer and ready to be paired.
Task Bar: The Acrylic visual style of the Fluent Design System is applied to the taskbar.
OneDrive status icons are shown in File Explorer to show the synchronization status of files and folders.
Game Bar: layout has changed to include a clock, and to provide new options to turn the microphone and camera on/off.
Nearby Sharing: a new feature found in the Shared Experiences area of Settings that provides the ability to share files and web links to other Windows 10 machines over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
My People: Acrylic visual style; three-contact limit is removed; new animations; drag-and-drop of contacts; app suggestions.
Text prediction: A new optional feature to enable autocomplete and autocorrection in any Windows application. The on-screen keyboard also has support for multilingual text prediction, which shows suggestions based on the top 3 installed Latin languages.
Deployment
Windows Autopilot: Windows Autopilot provides a modern device lifecycle management service powered by the cloud that delivers a zero touch experience for deploying Windows 10.
Kiosk Browser
Windows 10 Subscription Activation: Subscription Activation now supports Inherited Activation. Inherited Activation allows Windows 10 virtual machines to inherit activation state from their Windows 10 host.
Windows Setup: You can now run your own custom actions or scripts in parallel with Windows Setup. Setup will also migrate your scripts to next feature release, so you only need to add them once.
SetupDiag: SetupDiag is a new command-line tool that can help diagnose why a Windows 10 update failed.
Windows Update for Business: Windows Update for Business now provides greater control over updates, with the ability to pause and uninstall problematic updates using Intune.
Feature update improvements: Portions of the work done during the offline phases of a Windows update have been moved to the online phase. This has resulted in a significant reduction of offline time when installing updates.
Configuration
Co-management: Intune and System Center Configuration Manager policies have been added to enable hybrid Azure AD-joined authentication. Mobile Device Management (MDM) has added over 150 new policies and settings in this release, including the MDMWinsOverGP policy, to enable easier transition to cloud-based management.
OS uninstall period:The OS uninstall period is a length of time that users are given when they can optionally roll back a Windows 10 update. With this release, administrators can use Intune or DISM to customize the length of the OS uninstall period.
Windows Hello for Business: Windows Hello now supports FIDO 2.0 authentication for Azure AD Joined Windows 10 devices and has enhanced support for shared devices, as described in the Kiosk configuration section.
Accessibility and Privacy
Accessibility: Out of box" accessibility is enhanced with auto-generated picture descriptions.
Privacy: You can now delete the diagnostic data your device has sent to Microsoft.
Security
Security Baselines: The new security baseline for Windows 10 version 1803 has been published.
Windows Defender Antivirus: Windows Defender Antivirus now shares detection status between M365 services and interoperates with Windows Defender ATP. Additional policies have also been implemented to enhance cloud-based protection, and new channels are available for emergency protection.
Windows Defender Exploit Guard: Offers attack surface area reduction and extended support for Microsoft Office. Virtualization-based Security (VBS) and hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI) can now be enabled across the Windows 10 ecosystem. These Exploit Guard features can now be enabled through the Windows Defender Security Center.
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP): Has been enhanced with many new capabilities.
Windows Defender Application Guard: Added support for Microsoft Edge.
Windows Defender Device Guard: Configurable code integrity is being rebranded as Windows Defender Application Control. This is to help distinguish it as a standalone feature to control execution of applications.
Windows Information Protection: This release enables support for WIP with Files on Demand, allows file encryption while the file is open in another app, and improves performance.
Office 365 Ransomware Detection: For Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal subscribers, Ransomware Detection notifies you when your OneDrive files have been attacked and guides you through the process of restoring your files.
Windows Analytics
Upgrade Readiness: Upgrade Readiness has added the ability to assess Spectre and Meltdown protections on your devices. This addition allows you to see if your devices have Windows OS and firmware updates with Spectre and Meltdown mitigations installed, as well as whether your antivirus client is compatible with these updates.
Update Compliance: Update Compliance has added Delivery Optimization to assess the bandwidth consumption of Windows Updates.
Device Health: Device Health's new App Reliability reports enable you to see where app updates or configuration changes may be needed to reduce crashes. The Login Health reports reveal adoption, success rates, and errors for Windows Hello and for passwords— for a smooth migration to the password-less future.
Settings
New visual layout of the homepage; introduction of a "house" icon to represent the link back to the home page; adoption of the Acrylic visual style.
System -> Sound: New settings page in the System section to control audio input/output volume and devices, per-application audio levels, and access to the classic "Sound" control panel
System -> Focus Assist: Previously called "Quiet hours"; provides new settings to control when notifications may be shown to the user, as well as specific people and apps that are allowed to show notifications when Focus Assist is enabled. There are also options to enable displaying a summary of missed notifications when Focus Assist is turned off.
System -> Storage: New settings page called "Free up space now" which provides the same capabilities as Disk Cleanup. (Disk Cleanup is still included in 1803.)
Devices -> Typing: New settings page called "Advanced keyboard settings" which provides the ability to choose a different input method than the installed language; new setting to enable or disable multilingual text prediction.
Version 1809 (October 2018 Update)
Windows 10 October 2018 Update, or Windows 10 version 1809, is the sixth feature update to Windows 10.
Snip & Sketch (aka Screen Sketch) is now an app for screenshot
Notepad: Supports Unix-style (LF) and Macintosh-style (CR) end-of-line characters
File Explorer: Incorporates a new unified light-on-dark color scheme
OpenSSH as a Windows feature.
Version 1903 (May 2019 Update)
Windows 10 May 2019 Update, or Windows 10 version 1903, is the seventh feature update to Windows 10.
A new "Light" theme and a new desktop background
Windows Sandbox, available in Windows 10 Pro, Education, and Enterprise, which allows users to run applications within a secured Hyper-V environment.
The ability to "pause" updates has been added in Windows 10 Home.
New search tool, separated from Cortana
Brightness slider added in the notification center
Kaomoji and symbols added to the emoji input menu
Windows Mixed Reality can run Win32 applications within its environment
Version 2004 (May 2020 Update)
Windows Subsystem for Linux 2
New keyboard shortcuts
See also
References
External links
Index of Windows 10 apps
Windows 10
Windows 10 |
46795367 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing%20Personal%20%28Agents%20of%20S.H.I.E.L.D.%29 | Nothing Personal (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) | "Nothing Personal" is the twentieth episode of the first season of the American television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division), revolving around the character of Phil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they learn of a traitor in their team. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The episode was written by Paul Zbyszewski and DJ Doyle, and directed by Billy Gierhart.
Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, and is joined by series regulars Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge. Special guest star Cobie Smulders returns as Maria Hill, also reprising her role from the film series.
"Nothing Personal" originally aired on ABC on April 29, 2014, and according to Nielsen Media Research, was watched by 5.95 million viewers.
Plot
Maria Hill leaves a debrief with Congress regarding S.H.I.E.L.D., speaking with Pepper Potts about the day's events and the obvious tails following her. The tails are suddenly incapacitated, and Hill finds herself facing Melinda May in an alleyway. May asks Hill to help Phil Coulson, expressing her concerns that Coulson may be compromised and Hydra leader Alexander Pierce may have been behind his neural "reprogramming" in the T.A.H.I.T.I. program. May asks to speak with Director Nick Fury and Hill insists he is dead, which May does not believe.
In the Providence bunker, the agents are watching footage that demonstrates that May has left the team, and that Grant Ward and Skye left together, hand-in-hand, on the Bus. Agent Eric Koenig is nowhere to be found. Confused by the events, the team disperses to make dinner, when Leo Fitz discovers a hidden message from Skye that says "Ward is Hydra." At the same time, Jemma Simmons finds Koenig's body. Realizing that Skye has uncovered Ward's duplicity, the team, after overcoming their shock, decide to pursue Ward to rescue Skye. As they prepare to leave, US Special forces led by Colonel Glenn Talbot swarm the Providence bunker - Agent Hill has led them to Coulson's location.
Talbot threatens prison for Coulson's team, but Coulson informs Hill of Ward's betrayal. She and Coulson incapacitate the Special Forces, and the team heads out to intercept Skye and Ward. Skye, in the meantime, has led Ward to the diner where she first met Mike Peterson / Deathlok and is delaying the decryption of her hard drive. While stalling, she alerts the Police to their whereabouts, and the police attempt to apprehend the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Ward overpowers them, but Skye attempts to flee in a Police vehicle. However, she is stopped by Deathlok, who takes her back to the Bus.
She refuses to help Ward and Deathlok decrypt the hard drive, and expresses her hatred of Ward, despite his insistence that his feelings for her are real. Deathlok uses one of his weapons to induce a heart attack by "stopping" Ward's heart, and Skye gives in to save him, agreeing to decrypt the drive. She reveals that the harddrive encryption is tied to altitude, stating that they must be at 35,000 ft for the drive to unlock. While preparing to take off, Ward is confronted by Hill in John Garrett's old aircraft, who threatens him, but Ward calls her bluff stating that Coulson would never risk Skye, and takes off anyway. However, Hill's delay allowed Coulson time to sneak on board via the wheel well.
Coulson finds Skye and plans to take down Ward, but he doesn't know about Deathlok’s presence. That necessitates a new plan; running away. Skye and Coulson retreat to Lola and, under fire from Ward and Deathlok, drop out of the sky and plummet towards LA. Lola’s thrusters kick in at the last second and they fly to the ground.
Deathlok then attempts to convince Ward to let them go now that the drive is decrypting on Garrett's orders, but Ward refuses. The team retires to a hotel, where Skye reveals she left a trap in the hard drive. Later, May returns and shows Coulson the contents of a flash drive she recovered from his "grave," specifically a message to Fury from the director of T.A.H.I.T.I. The file is a video of Coulson himself informing Fury that T.A.H.I.T.I. must be shut down because of horrific side effects the drugs had on test subjects, which could only be mitigated by erasing the victim's memory of what happened.
Production
Development and writing
In April 2014, Marvel revealed that the twentieth episode would be titled "Nothing Personal", and would be written by Paul Zbyszewski and DJ Doyle, with Billy Gierhart directing. The visual of the team staying at a motel while on the run was meant to be contrasted against the presence of "big S.H.I.E.L.D." from "End of the Beginning" when all the established agents appear.
Casting
In April 2014, Marvel revealed that main cast members Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge would star as Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Grant Ward, Skye, Leo Fitz, and Jemma Simmons, respectively. It was also revealed that the guest cast for the episode would include J. August Richards as Mike Peterson / Deathlok, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Adrian Pasdar as Colonel Glenn Talbot, B. J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett and Josh Breeding as parking attendant. Breeding did not receive guest star credit in the episode. Richards, Smulders, Pasdar, and Britt reprise their roles from earlier in the series.
Filming
Filming occurred from March 6 to March 17, 2014.
Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins
The episode features the first mention of Man-Thing in the MCU, though his comic wife Ellen Brandt appeared in Iron Man 3 portrayed by Stéphanie Szostak. The mention comes from Hill, who Smulders previously portrayed in The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as she has a phone conversation with Pepper Potts, who is portrayed in the films by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Release
Broadcast
"Nothing Personal" was first aired in the United States on ABC on April 29, 2014.
Marketing
For the final six episodes, Marvel began the "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Art of Level Seven" initiative, in which a different image was released each Thursday before a new episode, depicting a first look at a key event from the upcoming episode. Bell stated that the initiative was a way to tie the series back to its comics roots, and was thought of at the beginning of the season. The production team tried to pair specific artists to the teaser posters based on their previous work and how it connected to the themes and emotion of the intended episode. The poster for "Nothing Personal", created by Stephanie Hans, highlights Skye and Ward in a depiction of a moment from the episode, with Deathlok looming over them, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo in the background. Hans said she wanted to show "the shock and pain of having to choose between hurting somebody or betraying your team" which is what Skye was going through. Hans added that even though Skye is hold Ward in the poster "with all her might, she couldn't be more alone".
Home media
The episode, along with the rest of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.s first season, was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 9, 2014. Bonus features include behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel. On November 20, 2014, the episode became available for streaming on Netflix.
Reception
Ratings
In the United States the episode received a 2.1/6 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 2.1 percent of all households, and 6 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was watched by 5.95 million viewers.
References
External links
"Nothing Personal" at ABC
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season 1) episodes
2014 American television episodes
Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover episodes |
46795616 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence%20%28Agents%20of%20S.H.I.E.L.D.%29 | Providence (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) | "Providence" is the eighteenth episode of the first season of the American television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division), revolving around the character of Phil Coulson and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they scramble to survive following the destruction of their organisation. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The episode was written by Brent Fletcher, and directed by Milan Cheylov.
Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, and is joined by series regulars Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge.
"Providence" originally aired on ABC on April 15, 2014, and according to Nielsen Media Research, was watched by 5.52 million viewers.
Plot
Grant Ward rescues Raina from prison and takes her to an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Cuba, now repurposed by Hydra. He introduces her to Garrett, who gives her the drug samples he collected from T.A.H.I.T.I. and instructs her to synthesize GH325. Ward provides Raina with the drive containing the Bus data, while he and Garrett raid the Fridge, killing the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel stationed there. Garrett reveals that the Slingshot program, in which weapons are fired into space to keep them out of the wrong hands, is a deception, and all the weaponry is instead stored in a secret vault; they retrieve the Tesseract weapon found in Peru, the gravitonium generator and the Berserker staff, and also release numerous prisoners, including Ian Quinn.
Meanwhile, Phil Coulson's team, including Antoine Triplett, abandon the Hub when Glenn Talbot is dispatched to capture the remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. bases. Coulson's badge displays co-ordinates which he believes have been sent by Nick Fury, and he decides to follow the co-ordinates to the Canadian wilderness. The others are worried about his state of mind, with Melinda May concerned that Hydra may have used T.A.H.I.T.I. to hijack Coulson's brain, if the agent overseeing the project was a sleeper agent. They search the wilderness and find a secret base, Providence, manned by communications specialist agent Eric Koenig, who initially tells the team that Fury is dead, but privately informs Coulson of his survival.
Raina informs Ward and Garrett that Skye's encryption is too sophisticated and she cannot retrieve the data on the drive, so Garrett orders Ward to rejoin Coulson's team at Providence, and manipulate Skye into unlocking the drive. In an end tag, Garrett offers Quinn the gravitonium in exchange for continuing to assist Hydra.
Production
Development and writing
In March 2014, Marvel revealed that the eighteenth episode would be titled "Providence", and would be written by Brent Fletcher, with Milan Cheylov directing. On Raina learning John Garrett was "the Clairvoyant", co-producer Shalisha Francis noted her reaction was discussed a lot with the writers, ultimately feeling "she would be really disappointed". Because of her fascination with powered people, learning Garrett simply had access to classified files was "alarming to her". Eric Koenig was written with Patton Oswalt in mind to portray him, because Oswalt "knows more about S.H.I.E.L.D. than any of" the writers.
Casting
In March 2014, Marvel revealed that main cast members Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge would star as Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Grant Ward, Skye, Leo Fitz, and Jemma Simmons, respectively. It was also revealed that the guest cast for the episode would include Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett, David Conrad as Ian Quinn, Ruth Negga as Raina, B. J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett, Adrian Pasdar as Col. Glenn Talbot, Patton Oswalt as Eric Koenig, Patrick Brennan as Marcus Daniels, Rich Paul as Agent #1, Bayardo De Murguia as Agent #2, Jeffrey Muller as Agent Kaminsky, Alysha Del Valle as ABC reporter and Ramon Hilario as barber. Paul, De Murguia, Muller, Del Valle, and Hilario did not receive guest star credit in the episode. Paxton, Conrad, Negga, and Britt reprise their roles from earlier in the series.
Filming and design
Filming occurred from February 11 to February 20, 2014. The set for Garret's Cuba hideout was designed to look like "a long-forgotten nightclub or an abandoned speakeasy".
Release
Broadcast
"Providence" was first aired in the United States on ABC on April 15, 2014.
Marketing
For the final six episodes, Marvel began the "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Art of Level Seven" initiative, in which a different image was released each Thursday before a new episode, depicting a first look at a key event from the upcoming episode. Bell stated that the initiative was a way to tie the series back to its comics roots, and was thought of at the beginning of the season. The production team tried to pair specific artists to the teaser posters based on their previous work and how it connected to the themes and emotion of the intended episode. The poster for "Providence", created by Paolo Rivera, highlights the rise of Hydra by showing a melded Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, and depicts the team divided by Coulson, Raina, and Ward.
Home media
The episode, along with the rest of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.s first season, was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 9, 2014. Bonus features include behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel. On November 20, 2014, the episode became available for streaming on Netflix.
Reception
Ratings
In the United States the episode received a 2.1/6 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 2.1 percent of all households, and 6 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was watched by 5.52 million viewers.
References
External links
"Providence" at ABC
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season 1) episodes
2014 American television episodes
Television episodes set in Canada
Television episodes set in Cuba |
46849966 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications%20%28Interception%20and%20Access%29%20Amendment%20%28Data%20Retention%29%20Act%202015 | Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015 | The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015 is an Australian law that amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA Act) and the Telecommunications Act 1997 to introduce a statutory obligation for Australian telecommunication service providers to retain, for a period of two years, particular types of telecommunications data (metadata) and introduces certain reforms to the regimes applying to the access of stored communications and telecommunications data under the TIA Act.
The Act is the third tranche of national security legislation passed by the Australian Parliament since September 2014. Pursuant to s 187AA, the following types of information need to be retained by telecommunication service providers:
Incoming and outgoing telephone caller identification
Date, time and duration of a phone call
Location of the device from which phone call was made
Unique identifier number assigned to a particular mobile phone of the phones involved in each particular phone call
The email address from which an email is sent
The time, date and recipients of emails
The size of any attachment sent with emails and their file formats
Account details held by the internet service provider (ISP) such as whether or not the account is active or suspended.
The content or substance of a communication is not considered to be metadata and will not be stored. Twenty-two agencies including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), state police forces, Australian Crime Commission, Australian Taxation Office and NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) are able to view stored metadata without a warrant. The only exception is the metadata of those defined under the Act as journalists. Under a concession driven by the Australian Labor Party, agencies need to seek a warrant before a judicial officer before they are able to view the metadata of journalists, whilst ASIO will need to seek permission of the Attorney-General.
The Abbott Government's decision to introduce a mandatory telecommunications data regime led to considerable community debate. It was supported by law enforcement and national security agencies, including the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, who argued telecommunications data is critical to criminal investigations and that it is only through legislation that they can be assured that it will be available. The decision was opposed by a wide range of groups and individuals including journalists, human rights organisations and civil liberties groups. Their objections were made on a number of grounds, such as the consequences for journalism and journalistic practice, the non-proportionate and increasing encroachment of the privacy of Australia's population, and the effectiveness of the regime as a tool to combat crime.
Questions over its cost and the consequences for the telecommunications industry, in particular small to medium-sized providers, have also been raised as arguments against mandatory data retention.
While the Act is law, telecommunications and ISPs have an 18-month grace period to improve their systems and establish processes to comply with the legislation. Telstra has indicated it will store data it retains within Australia, but other telcos and ISPs are not obligated to do so under the law.
Background
Access to telecommunications data prior to the Act
Under the previous regime set down under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act), ‘enforcement agencies’ and ASIO could access telecommunications data through issuing an internal, or intra-organisation, authorisation.
During the 2012-2013 inquiry into Australia's national security legislation conducted by the PJCIS, the Attorney General's Department issued a document detailing what it considered to be telecommunications data. This included "information that allowed a communication to occur", such as the date, time and duration of the communication, the devices involved in the communication, and the location of those devices such as mobile phone tower, and "information about the parties to the communication", such as their names and addresses.
Section 5 of the Act defined an enforcement agency to include the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the police force of a State or Territory, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, crime commissions, anti-corruption bodies and the CrimTrac Agency. The definition also included an allowance enabling organisations whose remit either involves the administration of law involving a financial penalty or the administration of a law to protect taxation revenue to access telecommunications data.
The head of an enforcement agency, the deputy head of an agency, or a management level officer or employee of an agency, given permission in writing by the head of the agency, had the power to authorise access to telecommunications data. For ASIO, authorisations for access to telecommunications data could only be made when the individual making the authorisation was "satisfied that the disclosure would be in connection with the performance by the Organisation of its functions". ASIO also had to comply with guidelines issued under Section 8A of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979. These guidelines demanded that the initiation and continuation of investigations only be authorised by the Director-General, or an officer at or above Executive Level 2 authorised by the Director-General for that purpose; and that any means used for obtaining information must be proportionate to the gravity of the threat posed and the probability of its occurrence.
In 2012-13, more than 80 Commonwealth, State and Territory enforcement agencies accessed telecommunications data under the TIA Act. In that same period, more than 330,640 authorisations were dispensed allowing access to data. These authorisations resulted in 546,500 disclosures.
Proposals for reform
Since at least June 2010, it had been reported that the Australian Government was considering establishing a telecommunications data retention scheme. On 4 May 2012, the Gillard Government announced plans to review a range of national security legislation, including that covering "lawful access to telecommunications… to ensure that vital investigative tools are not lost as telecommunications providers change their business practices and begin to delete data more regularly."
In July 2012 the Attorney-General's Department released "Equipping Australia against Emerging and Evolving Threats", a discussion paper focused on proposed national security reforms. The paper's first chapter outlined the terms of reference for an inquiry to be conducted by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) into the potential reform of national security legislation, specifically the four following Acts:
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979
Telecommunications Act 1997
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979
Intelligence Services Act 2001
The discussion paper grouped these proposals into three different categories: those the Government wished to progress, those the Government was considering, and those on which the Government was seeking the Committee's opinion. Though the paper contained eighteen proposals and forty-one individual reforms, the suggestion that carriage service providers (CSPs) be required to retain information on the way Australians use the internet and mobile phones elicited much consternation and comment from the community. This was a point the Committee highlighted in its final report to the Government:"The potential data retention regime attracted a large amount of criticism and comment from organizations and concerned individuals. These organizations and individuals generally considered any potential data retention regime a significant risk to both the security and their privacy. In addition to these general comments, the Committee received a large volume of form letter correspondence."On 24 June 2013, the Committee issued its report and put the decision on whether to progress with a mandatory data retention scheme back in the Government's hands. On the same day the report was released, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced the Government would not be pursuing its proposal.
On 30 October 2014, the Abbott Government introduced the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 into the House of Representatives. On 21 November 2014, the Attorney-General Senator George Brandis wrote to the PJCIS, referring the provisions of the Bill for inquiry.
Chaired by MP Dan Tehan, the Committee received 204 submissions, 31 supplementary submissions and held three public hearings. On 27 February 2015, the Committee presented its report, containing 39 recommendations. On 3 March 2015, the Government announced it would accept all the Committee's recommendations. However, the opposition Labor Party only agreed to support the passage of the Bill through the Senate after amendments were made to protect journalistic sources. On 26 March 2015, the Senate voted in favour of the Bill. On 13 April 2015, the Governor-General gave his royal assent and the Act entered into law.
PJCIS recommendations: 2013 and 2015 reports
In response to the need for available telecommunications data and growing national security threats, Attorney-General George Brandis asked the PJCIS to inquire into and report on the Act. The Committee handed down its report entitled Report of the Inquiry into Potential Reforms of Australia’s National Security Legislation (2013 PJCIS Report) on 24 June 2013, in which it made these recommendations:
The data retention obligation only applies to telecommunications data (not content) and internet browsing is explicitly excluded (Recommendation 42)
Service providers are required to protect the confidentiality of retained data by encrypting the information and protecting (Recommendation 42)
Mandatory data retention will be reviewed by the PJCIS no more than three years after its commencement (Recommendation 42)
The Commonwealth Ombudsman will oversight the mandatory data retention scheme and more broadly law enforcement exercise of powers under Chapter 3 and 4 of the TIA Act (Recommendations 4 and 42); and
Confining agencies’ use of, and access to, telecommunications data through refined access arrangements, including a ministerial declaration scheme based on demonstrated investigative or operations need (Recommendation 5).
The Act was again referred to the PJCIS for inquiry on 21 November 2014, where the Committee tabled its Advisory Report on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2014 (2015 PJCIS Report) on 25 February 2015. The PJCIS made these additional recommendations:
The implementation of a mandatory data retention regime is necessary to maintain the capability of national security and law enforcement agencies and recommended that the Act be passed (Recommendation 39)
Establish a ‘journalist information warrants’ regime and restrict the agencies who can access this data (Recommendation 26 and 27)
Provide for record-keeping and reporting the use of, and access to, telecommunications data and enable the Commonwealth Ombudsman to assess agency compliance (Recommendation 29)
Amend the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979(Cth)to provide that certain matters relating to data retention be include in the ASIO Annual Report; and
Amend the Intelligence Services Act 2001(Cth) to enable to PJCIS to inquire into operation matters relating to the use of telecommunications data by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, in relation to counter-terrorism function (Recommendation 34)
On 3 March 2015, the Abbott Government announced that it would accept all of the above recommendations, and on 19 March 2015, the House of Representatives agreed to the amendments to the Act and to the Intelligence Services Act 2001, the Telecommunication Act 1997, and the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australia Security Intelligence Organisations Act 1979 to give effect to the 2015 PJCIS Report. The House of Representatives also agreed to amendments to implement the ‘journalist information warrant’ scheme.
Overview of the Act
The Act's purpose is to amend the TIA Act and Telecommunications Act 1997 so as to require service providers to retain a defined subset of telecommunications data (the data set) produced in the course of providing telecommunications services. Before the Act, the TIA Act did not specify the types of data the telecommunications industry should retain for law enforcement and national security purposes, or how long that information should be held. As a result, there was significant variation across the telecommunications industry in the types of data available to national law enforcement agencies and national security agencies and the period of time information was available. The lack of available data was identified by agencies as an impediment to their ability to investigate and prosecute national security-related offences, including counter-terrorism, counter-espionage and cyber-security and serious criminal offences such as murder, rape and kidnapping.
The amendments are contained in three schedules to the Act:
Schedule 1: Data retention – requires telecommunications services providers to retain data associated with a communication for a two-year period.
Schedule 2: Restricting access to stored communications and telecommunications data – deals with access to retained data.
Schedule 3: Oversight by the Commonwealth Ombudsman – sets out the Ombudsman's role in overseeing compliance with the Act.
Schedule One
Division 1 of Part 5-1A: Obligation to keep information or documents
Section 187A requires relevant telecommunications service providers to retain communications data associated with a communication specified in section 187AA for two years. The Revised Explanatory Memorandum (2013-2014-2015) (Memorandum) explains the two-year retention period is necessary so national security and law enforcement agencies have telecommunications data available for investigations.
Section 187AA lists in a detailed technologically-neutral table the kinds of information service providers must collect and retain in relation to each relevant service they provide. According to the Memorandum, section 187AA ensures the ‘legislative framework gives service providers sufficient technical detail about their data retention obligations while remaining flexible enough to adapt to future changes in communication technology’.
Subsection 187AA(2) permits the Attorney-General to amend the data set set out in section 187AA temporarily by issuing a declaration. This is designed to cover a situation where future technologies or changing telecommunications practices require amendments to the data set to ensure the data retention scheme continues to meet its underlying purpose. However, this power is subject to section 187AA(3)(a) which provides that the declaration ceases to be effective 40 sitting days of either House of Parliament after the declaration comes into force.
Information or documents to be retained
Information excluded from data retention regime
If telecommunication providers do not presently create the information or documents required by s 187AA, then section 187A(6) requires providers to use other means to create the information. Furthermore, s 187BA requires a service provider to protect the confidentiality of information it keeps by encrypting it and protecting it from unauthorised interference or access. The section does not prescribe a particular type of encryption. Section 187LA requires service providers to 'take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to protect (personal) information from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure'. These privacy safeguards are in addition to pre-existing obligations under clause 4.6.3 of the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code which require service providers to have 'robust procedures to keep its customers' personal information in its possession secure and restrict access to personnel who are authorised by the Supplier'.
These obligations can be varied and exempted. Under Division 2 of Part 5-1A, a service provider may seek approval of a data retention implementation plan that replaces a provider's obligations under s 187BA. This may be appropriate where the cost of encrypting a legacy system that was not designed to be encrypted would be unduly onerous and the provider has identified an alternative information security measure that could be employed.
While service providers are not prevented from retaining telecommunications data for more than two years for their own lawful purposes, the Act still requires service providers that hold ‘personal information’ to take reasonable steps to destroy that information or ensure that information is de-identified where the entity no longer needs the information for a reason set out in the APPs. In other words, when the retention period for the telecommunications data under Part 5-1A of the TIA Act expires, entities may be required to destroy or de-identify such information if it constitutes personal information.
Application of Part 5-1A to telecommunication service providers
Data retention obligations only apply to services that satisfy paragraphs 187A(3)(a), (b) and (c), which includes services for carrying communications, or enabling communications to be carried by guided or unguided electromagnetic energy, or both. Accordingly, data retention obligations apply to relevant services that operate ‘over the top’ (OTP) of, or in conjunction with, other services that carry communications and may, presumably, extend to internet service providers (ISPs) and Australian telecommunication companies such as Telstra, Vodafone and Optus. The Attorney-General is also granted power under section 187A(3A) to declare additional services to be within the data retention regime. Section 187B excludes certain service providers from complying with the data retention obligations, and ensures that entities such as the government, universities and corporations are not required to retain telecommunications data in relation to their own internal networks (provided they are not offered to the public). Similarly, s 187B extends to providers of communication services in a single place, such as free WiFi access in cafés and restaurants.
The exemption of a service is, however, subject to the discretion of the Communications Access Co-ordinator (CAC), who, pursuant to section 187B(2A), can declare a service provider is nevertheless required to retain telecommunications data. Subsection 187B(3) provides that in making such a declaration, the CAC must have regard to the interests of law enforcement and security, the objects of the Telecommunications Act and the Privacy Act, along with any submissions of the Privacy Commissioner.
Division 2 of Part 5-1A: Data retention implementation plans
Division 2 of Part 5-1A of the TIA Act relates to 'data retention implementation plans', which are plans intended to allow the telecommunications industry to design a pathway to full compliance with the data retention and security obligations within 18 months of the commencement of those obligations. There is a 2-year window for telecommunication service providers and ISPs to implement the changes made by the Act, and over the first 6 months, service providers and ISPs must apply to the Communications Access Co-ordinator (CAC) to obtain approval for their ‘data retention implementation plan’. This plan must explain the organisation's current practices, details of the interim arrangements, and the expected date when the organisation will comply with the data retention requirements. Section 187F sets out the factors the CAC must take into account when considering the approval of a submitted plan. These factors include:
Desirability of a service provider achieving substantial compliance with its data retention and security obligations as soon as practicable: s 187F (2)(a)
Whether the proposed plan would reduce the service provider's regulatory burden: s 187(2)(b)
The interests of law enforcement and security: s 187 (2)(d)
There is also an extensive consultation process with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), under s 187G. Under Division 3 of Part 5-1A, a service provider is able to seek an exemption for some of its services under Division 3 while at the same time submit an implementation plan for some or all of its other services under Division 2. In particular, s 187K provides the CAC with the power to exempt a service provider from data retention and information security obligations. This exemption framework is intended to permit variations in service providers obligations in a range of circumstances, including where imposing data retention obligations would be of limited utility for law enforcement and national security purposes. The decision of the CAC to grant exemption or variations is open to judicial review under s 75(v) of the Constitution and s 39B of the Judiciary Act 1901 (Cth).
Amendments to the ASIO Act and Intelligence Services Act 2001
The Act amends the reporting requirements under s 94(2A) of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (ASIO Act) to require that ASIO's annual reports include the following: the number or types of purposes of authorisations to access retained data under s 175 and s 176 (3) of the TIA Act, including ‘journalist information’ warrants; the length of time for which relevant documents covered by the authorisations were held; and the number of authorisations that related to retained subscriber data and communications traffic data as contained in Item 1, s 187AA Table.
The Act also amends the Intelligence Services Act 2001 (ISA), principally to confer a statutory function upon the PJCIS under s 29 of the ISA, enabling it to review the overall effectiveness of the operation of the data retention scheme, with specific focus on the data access activities of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police.
Journalist information warrants
The Act introduces a ‘journalist information’ warrant scheme under Division 4C. This scheme, requires ASIO and other law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant prior to authorising the disclosure of telecommunications data for the purposes of identifying a journalist's confidential source. The Attorney-General or an issuing authority (including ‘eligible persons’ within ASIO and AFP) under s 180L and s 180T respectively, must consider several factors when deciding whether to issue an information warrant. In particular, they must be satisfied the warrant is ‘reasonably necessary’ to, enforce the criminal law, locate a person reporting missing to the AFP or State Police, enforce a law that imposes a pecuniary penalty, or protect the public revenue and investigate serious offences against Commonwealth, State or Territory law punishable by a 3-year imprisonment term. Additionally, the Attorney-General or the issuing authority must not issue a warrant unless satisfied the public interest in issuing the warrant outweighs the public interest in protecting the source's confidentiality. Submissions by the newly created Public Interest Advocate must also be considered when deciding to issue a warrant.
An enforcement agency may use or disclose the issuing of a warrant or information about such a warrant to a third party only for specified purposes, pursuant to s 182B. Such purposes include enabling a person to comply with their notification obligations under s 185D or s 185E in relation to journalist information warrants, enabling ASIO to perform its functions, or enabling the enforcement of the criminal law or a law imposing a pecuniary penalty, or the protection of the public revenue.
Public Interest Advocate
Section 180X creates the role of Public Interest Advocate, who considers and evaluates journalist information warrants made by ASIO and law enforcement agencies pursuant to s 180L and s 180T respectively. The Advocate can make independent submissions to the Minister, and to the issuing authority in the case of the law enforcement agencies, regarding the granting of a journalist information warrant.
Schedule Two
Schedule 2 amends the TIA Act to limit the types of agencies that can apply for stored communications warrants under Part 3-3 of Chapter 3 of the TIA Act, and the types of authorities and bodies that can authorise the disclosure of telecommunications data under Division 4, Part 4-1 of Chapter 4 of the TIA Act.
Prior to the Act, the TIA Act permitted ‘enforcement agencies’ to access both stored communications (such as content of emails or SMS messages) and data about communications (metadata). The former required a warrant for access under s 110 and s 116, but the latter did not. ‘Enforcement agencies’ were broadly defined to include all interception agencies, as well as a body whose function includes administering a law imposing a pecuniary penalty or the protection of public revenue. As a result, the range of agencies that had access to stored communications and telecommunications data was wide and included local government, councils and Commonwealth and State departments and agencies.
Schedule 2 creates only two categories of authorised agencies: ‘criminal law enforcement agencies’ and ‘enforcement agencies’ (which incorporate the former).
Criminal law enforcement agencies
The Act removes reference to an ‘enforcement agency’ in subsection 110(1) of the TIA Act and substitutes the new definition of a ‘criminal law enforcement agency’ in s 110A of the Act. According to the Memorandum, the definition reduces the number of agencies that can apply for stored communication warrants from all enforcement agencies that investigate serious contraventions to only those authorities and bodies recognised under section 110A of the Act as being a ‘criminal law enforcement agency’.
Under section 110A, ‘criminal law enforcement agency’ is defined as including the Australian Federal Police, a State Police force, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, Australian Crime Commission, Australia Customs and Border Protection Service, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Crime Commission, the Police Integrity Commission, the Crime and Corruption Commission of Queensland, the Corruption and Crime Commission and the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption.
Section 110A(3) enables the Attorney-General to declare, upon request, other authorities or bodies to be ‘criminal law enforcement agencies'. In making such a declaration, the Attorney-General must consider a range of factors, including whether the authority is involved in ‘investigating serious contraventions’. Section 110A(8) enables the Attorney-General to later revoke such a declaration if no longer satisfied that circumstances justify the declaration.
Enforcement agencies
Section 176A alters the definition of ‘enforcement agency’ in subsection 5(1) of the TIA Act to limit the authorities and bodies that can access telecommunications data (metadata) to only 'criminal law enforcement agencies' and authorities and bodies declared under s 176A to be an ‘enforcement agency’.
In declaring an authority or body an 'enforcement agency', the Attorney-General must consider a range of factors, including whether the agency enforces the criminal law, imposes pecuniary penalties, or protects the public revenue. Section 176A(3B) requires that the Attorney-General not declare a body an ‘enforcement agency’ unless satisfied on ‘reasonable’ grounds that the body has these aforementioned functions. The Attorney-General may later revoke such a declaration under s 176A(8) if no longer satisfied that circumstances justify the declaration. According to the Memorandum, this section ensures only bodies or authorities with a demonstrated need for access to telecommunications data can authorise service providers to disclose information.
Schedule Three
Schedule 3 inserts obligations into the TIA Act to keep records about access to stored communications and telecommunications data, and also inserts into the TIA Act a comprehensive record-keeping, inspection and oversight regime in relation to:
The issue of preservation notices by criminal law enforcement agencies; and
Access to, and dealing with, stored communications by criminal law enforcement agencies, and telecommunications data by criminal law enforcement agencies and enforcement agencies.
The record-keeping regime requires all Commonwealth, State and Territory enforcement agencies to keep prescribed information and documents necessary to demonstrate they have exercised their powers in accordance with their obligations under the TIA Act. The inspection and oversight regime requires the Ombudsman to inspect and oversee records of Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies in order to assess compliance with their duties under the TIA Act.
Record-keeping obligations
Section 186A sets out the information or documents an enforcement agency must retain to ensure the Ombudsman is able to inspect the agency's records to determine the agency's compliance with Chapter 4 of the TIA Act. The types of documents or information required to be kept in the agency's records include the authorisations made by an officer of the agency under sections 178, 178A, 179 or 180, and documents or materials that indicate whether the authorisation was made properly. Subsection 186A(2) allows the Attorney-General to prescribe additional kinds of documents and other materials enforcement agencies must keep.
Oversight by Ombudsman
Section 186B requires the Ombudsman to inspect records kept by enforcement agencies using or accessing telecommunications data and stored communications. The Ombudsman must determine whether an agency is compliant with its obligations regarding the issue of preservation notices, access to stored communications, and access to telecommunications data.
Section 186J requires the Ombudsman to report publicly on the results of its oversight functions under section 186B. This ensures the Ombudsman can make public the results of its inspections under Chapter 4A.
Compatibility with human rights
In accordance with its obligations under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 the Australian Government is required to provide statements of compatibility of all new bills with Australia's human rights obligations under international instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Revised Explanatory Memorandum (2013-2014-2015) (Memorandum) provided a detailed exposition of the Act and its engagement with human rights and an analysis of the Act's compatibility with the ICCPR. The Memorandum claims the Act is compatible with human rights and freedoms recognised and declared in the international instruments listed in section 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011.
In particular, the Act engages the ICCPR in these ways:
Protection against arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy contained in Article 17 of the International (Article 17, ICCPR)
The right to a fair hearing, the right to minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings and the presumption of innocence (Article 14, ICCPR)
The right to freedom of expression (Article 19, ICCPR)
The right to life and the right to security of the person (Articles 6 and 9, ICCPR)
The right to an effective remedy (Article 2(3), ICCPR)
Right to privacy (Article 17, ICCPR)
Article 17 of the ICCPR provides that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence. The use of the term ‘arbitrary’ means any interference with privacy must be in accordance with the provision, aims and objectives of the ICCPR and should be reasonable in the circumstances. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has interpreted this provision as requiring that any limitation of privacy must be both proportionate to a legitimate end and necessary in the circumstances of a particular case.
Schedule 1
According to the Memorandum, the legislative requirement for providers to store telecommunications data in relation to its services is consistent with Article 17. The specification of the types of data that may be retained (under s 187AA) ensures that only narrow categories of telecommunications data necessary for the investigation of serious criminal offences and national security threats are retained. The Memorandum claims that this means the retention of specified dataset under s 187AA, while an interference with privacy, is reasonable and is proportionate to and necessary for the legitimate aim of ensuring law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the investigative tools to safeguard national security and prevent or detect serious and organised crime. Each Item (1-6) in s 187AA specifying particular types of data that can be retained was then assessed for its compatibility with Article 17 of the ICCPR, and each Item was considered reasonable, proportionate and necessary to criminal and national security investigations.
CAC exemption regime
Similarly, the exemption framework established by s 187B along with the introduction of the CAC indirectly strengthens the right to privacy of individual customers by providing a method of reducing data retention obligations in circumstances where the volume of data to be retained is disproportionate to the interest of law enforcement and national security.
Security and destruction of retained data
According to the Memorandum, the Act contains safeguards to ensure individuals' privacy rights, especially in relation to telecommunications, are protected. In particular, the Act provides that the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act 1988 apply to all data retained under the Act. Specifically, the APPs impose an obligation on service providers to ensure the quality and/or correctness of any personal information (APP 10) and to keep personal information secure (APP 11). This introduces an oversight mechanism whereby the Privacy Commissioner can review and assess service providers' collection, storage and use of data. An additional layer of privacy and security protection for consumer data provided by the Act is the requirement that service providers protect retained data through encryption and introduce the Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms, which require service providers to do their best to prevent unauthorised access and interference. These safeguards are supplemented by already-existing obligations under the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code.
Comparative frameworks – EU data retention directive
In 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) assessed the legality of the EU's Data Retention Directive in two seminal decisions, namely, Digital Rights Ireland Ltd and Ors(C-293/12) and Karntner Landesregierung and Ors (C-594/12). In these cases, the CJEU enunciated criteria that a data retention regime must meet in order to be compatible with human rights principles. It also stated that proposed legislation ‘must lay down clear and precise rules governing the scope and application of the measures in question, imposing minimum safeguards so that the persons about whom data have been retained have sufficient guarantees to effectively protect their personal data against risk of abuse and unlawful access and use of that data’. The CJEU considered that the extent of interference proposed by the EU Data Retention Directive was disproportionate to the objective being achieved, and more broadly, was not compatible with applicable human rights instruments. The Memorandum states that the Act is consistent with the criteria established by the CJEU.
Schedule 2
The collective amendments in Schedule 2 reinforce the privacy protections established under Schedule 1. According to the Memorandum, the amendments regarding the limitation of agencies that can apply for access to stored communications warrants, and the types of authorities and bodies that can authorise the disclosure of telecommunications data under Division 4 of the TIA Act, contribute to ensuring that access is reasonable, proportionate and necessary.
The Memorandum claims that the amendment of the definition of ‘enforcement agency’ to clearly circumscribe the agencies who may access telecommunications data effectively ensures access is limited to those agencies that have a clear and scrutinised need for access to telecommunications data in the performance of their functions. Furthermore, in order to reinforce the privacy protections associated with a user's telecommunications data contained within the TIA Act, Schedule 2 introduces limitations upon the types of agencies permitted to authorise the disclosure of telecommunications data for an agency's investigation. In this respect, the Act increases the threshold requirement in s 180F, by requiring that the authorising officer be ‘satisfied on reasonable grounds’ that a particular disclosure or use of telecommunication data is proportionate to the intrusion into privacy it represents. According to the Memorandum, this amendment bolsters privacy safeguards by ensuring agencies weigh the proportionality of the intrusion into privacy against the value of the evidence and the assistance to be provided to the investigation. Agencies such as ASIO are also subject to strict privacy and proportionality obligations under the Attorney-General's Guidelines, made under s 8(1)(a) of the ASIO Act, which requires, inter alia, that the means used for obtaining the information must be proportionate to the gravity of the threat posed and investigations and inquiries into individuals and groups should be undertaken with as little intrusion into personal privacy as possible. These amendments ensure any abrogation of the privacy right in Article 17 is limited to the legitimate purpose articulated in the TIA Act.
Schedule 3
The oversight provisions contained in Schedule 3 extend the remit of the Ombudsman to comprehensively assess agency compliance with all the enforcement agency's obligations under Chapter 3 and 4 of the TIA Act, including the use and access to telecommunications data. According to the Memorandum, this oversight model promotes the right to privacy by confirming the Ombudsman's ability to audit an agency's use of its powers to access stored communications and telecommunications data under the TIA Act. This helps ensure an agency's access to the telecommunications information of interest to an investigation, and the interaction with the privacy right under Article 17 in that regard is a reasonable, necessary and proportionate limitation on that right to privacy. Furthermore, a comprehensive oversight model ensures that use, access to or disclosure of telecommunications data is subject to independent compliance assessment. It also provides an important level of public accountability and scrutiny of agency practice by virtue of the Ombudsman's public reporting regime implemented in Chapter 4A.
According to the Memorandum, the oversight model promotes the Convention rights by virtue of several key features of the regime, including a higher level of specificity and transparency in terms of the precise reporting obligations imposed on law enforcement agencies, consistency in inspection methodology by virtue of non-fragmentary model involving oversight of all agencies that apply the powers under Chapters 3 and 4, and clearly defining reporting obligations, which engender a higher level of compliance by agencies and greater acuity in statistical output to measure compliance for annual reporting and cross-agency compliance.
Right to freedom of expression (Article 19, ICCPR)
Article 19 of the ICCPR provides that all persons shall have the right to freedom of expression. This right includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through any media. Article 19(3) provides that freedom of expression may be subject to limitations for specified purposes provided in the right, including the protection of national security or public order where such restrictions are provided by law and are necessary for attaining one of these purposes.
According to the Memorandum, the Act could potentially restrict the right to freedom of expression, as some persons may be more reluctant to use telecommunications services to seek, receive and impart information if they know data about their communication is stored and may be subject to lawful access. However, the limitation imposed by the data retention regime is in pursuit of the legitimate objective of protecting public order and further limits the abrogation of the right to freedom of expression by ensuring that only the minimum necessary types and amounts of telecommunications data are retained, and by limiting the range of agencies that may access the data.
Journalist information warrant regime
According to the Memorandum, the Bill promotes freedom of expression and the right to privacy by requiring a higher threshold for access through ex ante judicial review of a warrant for data authorisation requests and ensuring data access for the purposes of identifying a source receives specific and dedicated independent attention. Independent oversight minimises the risk that sources will be deterred from informing the press of matters of public interest, and ensures the media is not adversely affected by the measures. Furthermore, this measure ensures access is only permitted in circumstances where the public interest in issuing the warrant outweighs the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the source.
The additional protection afforded to these data authorisations complements journalists’ limited privilege not to be compelled to identify their sources where they have given an undertaking of confidentiality. The amendments add a further warrant threshold, providing a significant additional and unique protection in relation to the identification of confidential journalist sources. Additionally, the statutory criteria to which issuing authorities must have regard in considering a journalist information warrant application, including the gravity of conduct in relation to which the warrant is sought and the potential investigative utility of the information, ensures privacy and public interest considerations are always taken into account before a warrant is granted.
Right to life and security of person (Articles 6 and 9, ICCPR)
Pursuant to Article 9 of the ICCPR, the state is to provide reasonable and appropriate measures within the scope of those available to public authorities to protect a person's physical security. Similarly, the right to life under Article 6 of the ICCPR imposes a positive obligation to protect life. The Memorandum points out that European jurisprudence has established that the obligation to protect life also requires the police and other protective authorities to take, in certain well-defined circumstances, preventative operational measures to protect an individual whose life is at risk from the acts of a third party. The obligation the Act places on service providers to retain a limited subset of telecommunications data buttresses the right to life in Article 6 of the ICCPR. According to the Memorandum, if such data is not retained, law enforcement investigations will be compromised and the police's ability to protect the security of potential victims of crime is critically undermined.
Case for data retention
Modernisation
Prior to the Act's introduction, access to telecommunications data in Australia was governed by the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act) and the Telecommunications Act 1997. Since they were enacted, communication technologies have undergone a transformation. Online communication is an integral part of life. Australians now use a variety of devices to communicate, including fixed line telephones, mobile phones, personal computers and tablets. Australians also use various communication applications including email, instant messaging and social media platforms.
Telecommunications service providers have responded to the increasing use of these devices and applications with new business practices, selling their services to customers on the basis of monthly data volumes. Consequently, they no longer need to store information surrounding individual communications to accurately bill customers. Some providers only retain the details of the amount of data sent for their billing purposes.
Prior to the Act, the retention period for IP-based data is volatile; data is typically stored for only a number of weeks or months. As technology evolves, all historical telecommunications data will be based on internet protocols as providers of telephony services increasingly use IP based technologies.
In its 2013 report on its inquiry into Australia's national security laws, the PJCIS concluded that the increasing adoption of these practices and the failure to retain data had "resulted in an actual degradation in the investigative capabilities of national security agencies, a process that is likely to accelerate in the future."
Telecommunications data is critical to many criminal investigations. Telecommunications data accessed during the initial stage of an inquiry assists law enforcement officials to understand the lives of victims, identify potential perpetrators, and construct pictures of their networks. Access to telecommunications also enables law enforcement agencies to collect and assess critical information and other evidence that could not otherwise be acquired.
Furthermore, access to telecommunications data is in some instances the only way in which some types of crime can be understood, and perpetrators identified and punished. Cyber-crime is such a category. Cyber-crimes necessarily leave a limited physical footprint. Sifting through telecommunications data is the only way investigators can identify real world offenders.
The inability of police and other law enforcement agencies to access telecommunications data can hamper criminal investigations. In their submission to the PJCIS inquiry into the Bill, the South Australian Police described such one such instance:
"A stalled murder investigation was reviewed about 14 months after the victim’s death. Fresh information received during the review identified a suspect who was a known drug dealer. The victim, a regular drug user, had been in contact with the suspect and investigators suspect the victim may have been killed over a drug deal. Historical telecommunications data was sought for the suspect’s mobile service for around the time of the murder but it was no longer available. The unavailability of the telecommunications data has been detrimental to the investigation and the case remains unsolved."
Supporters of the Act argue it ensures the continued availability of telecommunications data to prevent and solve crime.
High-risk environment
The current ongoing perceived threat of terrorism in Australia is advanced as a reason why a mandatory data retention regime is needed. In September 2014, on ASIO's advice, the Australian government raised the National Terrorism Public Alert level from medium to high. ASIO dispensed its recommendation on a number of factors including the increasing number of Australians working with or inspired by the acts of a number of different terrorist organizations including the Islamic State, Jabhat-al-Nusrah and Al- Qai’da.
Moreover, in its 2014 submission to the PGCIS inquiry into the Bill, ASIO noted that cyber attacks by hostile powers launched in order to obtain privileged political, military, economic, trade, business and government information pose a threat to computer systems operated by both the state and business.
The Attorney General's Department has argued that in such a high-risk environment, a data retention regime is imperative.
"In an increased threat environment characterised by a higher operational tempo, there is a narrower margin for error in law enforcement and national security investigations. The narrower margin is particularly evident in relation to lone wolf threats: such persons have limited, if any, contact with other known extremists, giving authorities fewer opportunities to detect their activities and intentions. As such, any missed opportunity to identify and prevent these attacks represents a significant risk."
In its submission the Department also noted the non-retention of telecommunications data can lead to opportunities to combat crime being missed:
"In the best case, agencies may be able to progress investigations by using more resource intensive methods, limiting their capacity to investigate other matters, or more intrusive investigative techniques. In the worst case, crime or threat to security will not be adequately investigated."
Case against data retention
Submissions made by key privacy, human rights and legal bodies, including the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR), Australian Privacy Foundation (APF), Law Council of Australia (LCA), Councils of Civil Liberties across Australia (CCLS) and the NSW and Victorian Privacy Commissioner, to the PJCIS were highly critical of the mandatory data retention scheme. The following headings represent the main arguments and criticisms made in several key submissions to the PJCIS.
Breaches human rights
The ‘statement of compatibility’ contained in the Revised Explanatory Memorandum claimed the regime did not breach Australia's human rights obligations under the ICCPR. However several submissions made to the PJCIS questioned the Bill's compatibility with several human rights principles. In its 2014 submission, the Australian Privacy Foundation argued the Bill was incompatible with fundamental human rights and freedoms, especially the right to privacy. It pointed to a considerable body of legal opinion that has concluded that laws mandating blanket retention of metadata breach international human rights law. It submitted that the Bill breached fundamental rights to privacy because it was neither necessary for nor proportionate to legitimate national security and law enforcements objectives. According to the APF, blanket data retention regimes are disproportionate because they ‘indiscriminately mandate the retention of data relating to entire populations, irrespective of the nature of the data or of whether or not there is a reasonable suspicions of a serious threat posed by those to whom the data relates’.
The APF referred to several key international law decisions, including reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Council, which all found metadata retention regimes breached human rights, especially the right to privacy. A similar position was taken by the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV), which submitted that, quoting the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘even the mere possibility of communications information being captured creates an interference with privacy, with a potential chilling effect on rights, including those to free expression and association’. As a result, the LIV submitted that mandatory third party data retention regimes are neither necessary nor proportionate, irrespective of increased concerns regarding national security threats.
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) also submitted concerns that the Bill constituted a serious and unreasonable infringement of the rights of law-abiding Australians. According to the ALHR, the Bill was an ‘indiscriminate, society wide’ invasion of privacy, which rebutted the presumption of innocence. Additionally, the ALHR contended the Bill infringes other human rights not acknowledged in the Memorandum, in particular, the right to be treated with dignity (Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights), freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence (Article 12, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The ALHR also submitted the Bill was likely to chill freedom of association (Articles 21 and 22, ICCPR and Article 20, Universal Declaration of Human Rights), the right to free development of one's personality (Article 22, Universal Declaration of Human Rights), the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs (Article 25, ICCPR), and press freedoms. According to ALHR, the Bill would restrict free speech, as Australians would not know what information about them, including information about their contacts, might be shared among government (and non-government) bodies. Similarly, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights argued that, although the data retention regime pursues a legitimate objective, the scheme's proportionality is questionable and it may have a ‘chilling’ effect on people's freedom and willingness to communicate via telecommunications services because people will ‘self-censor’ views expressed via telecommunications services. This view is also supported by the Law Council of Australia (LCA) and the Councils for Civil Liberties Australia (CCLA) .
Problems with definition of the data set
A major concern emphasised in several submissions was that the Bill did not define the relevant data set, leaving the precise definition to be prescribed by regulations. The government's justification for this is that this approach is consistent with the technology-neutral approach of the Privacy Act 1988 and Part 13 of the TIA Act. However, the APF considered that the way in which the data set is defined in the Bill was deeply problematic for several reasons, including that the data set is not appropriately limited to that which is necessary and proportionate for law enforcement and national security. The APF proposed that the Government consider adopting a more circumscribed and targeted data preservation regime that ‘incorporates adequate thresholds and procedural safeguards to ensure the data are sufficiently relevant to specific investigations’.
Similarly, the APF submitted that the scope of data which may be lawfully accessed needed to be appropriately defined under Chapter 4. Furthermore, it claimed there were serious problems with the way the Bill dealt with browsing history, including in s 187A(4)(b). In particular, there is no prohibition on service providers collecting and retaining Internet browsing history, which must be accessed as data under Chapter 4, meaning that the government's claim that browsing history was excluded from the data set is disingenuous.
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) also submitted that the lack of certainty regarding the prescribed data set was bad legislative practice and likely to result in legislative ‘creep’, with individuals' privacy rights being increasingly attacked through expansion of the data set. Furthermore, the Law Council of Australia (LCA) recommended that the power to prescribe by way of regulation the mandatory data set should be removed from the Bill and the Bill should clearly define the types of telecommunications data and the specific data set to be retained.
The 2015 PJCIS Report took into consideration these concerns and recommended the Bill be redrafted to prescribe the data set in the primary legislation. When the Bill was amended in 2015, the data to be retained was detailed within the primary legislation, under s 187AA, and this was the form in which the Bill became law.
Distinction between content and metadata
A persistent argument made against the Act was the false distinction it draws between content and ‘metadata’. In its 2014 submission, the Council for Civil Liberties across Australia and the APF claimed that whilst the explicit exclusion of ‘content’ from the categories of prescribed data is welcome, the purported distinction between ‘content’ and ‘metadata’ overlooks how much ‘metadata' can reveal about a person, especially when combined with contemporary data analytics. The APF, quoting the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Digital Rights Ireland, stated that metadata, ‘taken as a whole may allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons who data has been retained’.
Similarly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that ‘the aggregation of information commonly referred to as ‘metadata’, may give an insight into an individual's behaviour, social relationships, private preference and identity that go beyond even that conveyed by access the context of a private communication’. The APF also referred to a statement by Steward Baker, the former general counsel of the NSA, who claimed that ‘Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content’. As a result, the APF considered the claim by the Government that telecommunications data is less intrusive than communications content to be misleading and recommended that legal safeguards on the collection of and access to telecommunications data should at least be as strong as those applying to communications content.
The Law Council of Australia (LCA) was also concerned that there was uncertainty about whether some types of telecommunications data would be considered ‘content’ (and thus excluded from collection), including whether meta-tags would be captured. Further, while the Memorandum to the Bill recognised that ‘text messages and e-mails stored on a phone or other communications device are more akin to content than data’, the LCA claims it did not adequately explain how this is so. The LCA also argued that despite the exclusion of content from the prescribed data set, the categories of telecommunications data that may be prescribed are nonetheless broadly defined and may provide information about crucial matters such as people's associations and their whereabouts. Examples of personal information that it said could be determined from the prescribed data set included medical connections, use of mental health services, use of suicide hotlines, use of domestic violence crisis support, use of child abuse support, family associations, friendship groups, financial connections, legal connections, religious associations, political affiliations, sexual association, commercial preferences, location and movement.
The LCA and the LIV also criticised s 187A(6), which introduces the requirement that telecommunication service providers create data not currently captured through their services. In particular, the LCA was concerned that it was unclear in the Memorandum and Bill how the content and substance of communications would be separated and filtered from the non-content by service providers in the course of meeting their data retention obligations.
Duration of data retention obligation
Another major criticism of the data retention regime was the two-year data retention period specified in s 187C. The CCLS urged the government to reduce the data retention period because it is high compared to mass data retention regimes in other jurisdictions. The CCLS submitted statistics showing that most data accessed for investigations of terrorism and complex criminal offences is accessed within 6 months of being captured and that following this period the percentage of data used decreases significantly. The Communications Alliance and AMTA also noted that the majority of requests made by agencies to access telecommunications data held by ISPs related to data less than 6 months old. Similarly, the APF was concerned that the retention period was excessive and disproportionate, and that it imposed disproportionate costs on carriers and ISPs. The APF recommended a retention period of 1 year be trialed for the first 3 years of the scheme's operation.
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) drew attention to the Evaluation Report on the EU Data Retention Direction in 2011, which considered that the shortening of mandatory retention would improve the proportionality of the scheme. The Report also found that 67% of accessed data was under 3 months old and only 2% of requested data was over 1 year old across the EU. The AHRC also pointed to the decision of the CJEU in Digital Rights Ireland, in which a retention period of no less than 6 months and up to 2 years was assessed. The CJEU held that the data retention period was arbitrary and not limited to what was 'reasonably necessary' to achieve the objective pursued. Accordingly, the AHRC considered the 2 year retention period as unreasonable and disproportionate. The LCA also considered the two-year period as unusually long by international standards and not satisfactorily justified.
Despite such widespread concern and statistical evidence, the two-year retention period became law.
Security of retained data
The security of retained data was also a point of contention. The LCA voiced concerns that there did not appear to be a minimum set of standards for government agencies and service providers to ensure security of retained telecommunications data. It drew attention to the recent experience of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which mistakenly published sensitive information, including telecommunications data, connected to criminal investigations, demonstrating the importance of high levels of data security. It submitted that the implementation plan process would encourage service providers to seek the lowest possible cost solutions to data security. It referred to the CJEU's invalidation of the EU Data Directive on the basis it permitted providers to have regard to economic considerations when determining the level of security which they applied.
Both the LCA and the ALHR submissions expressed concern about s 187C(3), which allows a service provider to keep information or a document for a period longer than the two-year data retention period. Furthermore, once data is accessed by a law enforcement agency, there is no obligation upon it to destroy it in a timely manner even when it is irrelevant to the agency or no longer needed. The LCA made two recommendations - first, that the views of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner should be obtained to determine whether the current APPs and the proposed Telecommunications Service Sector Security Reform (TSSR) relating to the destruction of telecommunications data by service providers is sufficient to safeguard personal information, and, second, that the Bill should be amended to require law enforcement and security agencies to de-identify or put beyond use in a timely manner, data containing ‘personal’ information which is no longer relevant or needed for the agencies purposes.
Access to stored communications
Many submissions welcomed the circumscription of agencies that can access stored communications data under Schedule 2. The LCA, however, argued these amendments allowed the Government to expand the list of agencies that can access retained data without parliamentary scrutiny and that this was an example of another inappropriate delegation of power in the Bill. Further, the LCA, CCLS and APF all submitted that the Bill left open the critical question of what authorities or bodies would be listed as an ‘enforcement agency’, and therefore be able to access data. As the CCLS pointed out, the issue of who will have access to stored telecommunications data is of great significance in determining the proportionality of this intrusion into individuals' privacy rights.
The APF submitted that the Attorney-General was given too much discretion to declare bodies or authorities as criminal law enforcement agencies and while the Bill provides that the Attorney-General must consider a range of factors, this is an ineffective limitation on the Attorney-General's discretion and could potentially mean the definition could be extended to bodies administering laws imposing pecuniary penalties or revenue laws. In its submission, the LIV considered these functions as incredibly broad and a reflection of the pre-existing and problematic situation under the TIA Act, where an unknown number of diverse federal, state and even local government entities can access telecommunications data.
The thresholds for access were also a central feature of several submissions. As discussed above, once the Attorney-General declares an agency an enforcement agency, that agency is able to access metadata retained by a service providers. The agency can do so by requesting and authorising service providers to disclose the information. Such authorisations can be made in relation to retrospective historical data where doing so is ‘reasonably necessary’ for the enforcement of the criminal law, a law imposing a pecuniary penalty, or a law protecting the public revenue. In relation to prospective data, such authorisations could be made where ‘reasonably necessary’ for the investigation of a serious criminal offence. This differs from the process relating to stored communications (content), which can only be accessed by criminal law enforcement agencies through a warrant process.
The CCLS, LCA and the APF all submitted that both thresholds for access were too low, for several reasons. First, ‘reasonably necessary’ was not defined in the Bill and according to the CCLS, this could be interpreted in several ways and would be better altered to simply use the word ‘necessary’. The APF recommended a higher threshold be applied to access of both real-time communications and stored content, and that it be required that such access relate to investigations of serious criminal offences, punishable by an imprisonment term of at least 7 years. Additionally, the APF submitted that the procedural safeguards for access to data under Chapter 4 of the TIA Act were inadequate. It recommended that safeguards be introduced to regulate access to non-content telecommunications data, which could involve a decision of an independent body required to balance the objectives of access against the intrusion of privacy.
The CCLS also argued that it is clearly unacceptable for ‘enforcement agencies’ to be their own authorisers of access to personal information. Accordingly, it submitted that access to both retrospective and prospective data under the proposed scheme should only be on the basis of a prior warrant authorisation from a judicial authority. The LIV also submitted that access to telecommunications data must require judicial oversight. Gilbert + Tobin, in their 2014 submission, were also concerned regarding the prospect that enforcement agencies will effectively be able to access metadata on a ‘self-serve’ basis and given that metadata can reveal a significant amount of personal information about an individual, believed that greater procedural protections for accessing metadata should apply, and could be achieved through a warrant process along the lines of that allowing access to stored communications.
Blanket data retention not essential nor effective
In its submission, the CCLS did not accept that the data retention regime should extend to compulsory collection and retention of mass metadata of virtually the whole population. The primary reason for this is the scepticism of many experts, parliamentarians and legal and civil society groups that ‘mass collection and retention of telecommunications data of non-suspect citizens for retrospective access will significantly increase Australia’s (or any nations) safety from terrorism or serious crime’. They pointed to the then-recent tragedies in Sydney and Paris, which generated comment around the fact the perpetrators were already well known to police and intelligence agencies, but had been allowed to drop from active intelligence. Furthermore, the APF and CCLS drew attention to a 2014 report on US data retention programmes of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCOB), an independent agency established to advise the US executive on anti-terrorism law, The PCOB stated:
"We are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack … we believe that only one instance over the past seven years has the program arguably contributed to the identification of an unknown terrorist suspect"
The APF drew attention to the US Klayman v Obama (2013) decision where Judge Leon concluded there was no single instance where the collection of mass metadata either stopped an imminent terrorist threat or otherwise assisted in achieving a time-sensitive objective, and that there were therefore ‘serious doubts as to the efficacy of the metadata collection program’. As a result of criticism of the NSA program, the US Freedom Act was introduced in 2013 in order to end mass metadata collection. In support of the Bill, Representative Sensenbrenner and Democrat Patrick Leahy stated that ‘it is simply not accurate to say that the bulk of collection of phone records has prevented dozens of terrorists’ plots’ and that their position was bi-partisan.
The Law Council of Australia submitted that the ability to access telecommunications data under the Bill was not limited to national security or serious crime, as it said it should be, and also submitted that there is little evidence from comparable jurisdictions with mandatory data retention schemes to suggest they actually assist in reducing crime. For example, in Germany, research indicates the retention scheme led to an increase in the number of convictions by only 0.006%. Furthermore, there is a lack of Australian statistical quantitative and qualitative data to indicate the necessity of telecommunications data in securing convictions. The LCA suggested that if the proposed scheme was introduced, statistical reporting should indicate the times when access to retained data has resulted in a conviction, whether it has assisted in detecting serious criminal activity or assisted security agencies against threats to Australia's national security.
The CCLS and the APF concluded that the available evidenced-based research suggested a high degree of uncertainty as to the effectiveness and legitimacy of mass data retention regimes in preventing terrorism and other serious crime.
Journalists and their sources
Journalists and media organisations have long expressed concern over the introduction of a data retention scheme. This criticism, however, reached its peak in March 2015, after the Government agreed to accept amendments to the Bill outlined in a report by the JPCIS. On 9 March, the chair of the Australian Press Council, Professor David Weisbort said that if the Bill was passed into law as it stood the field of journalism would be adversely affected as whistleblowers would no longer be willing to come forward.
Alarmed by growing criticism from the media, and committed to passing the Bill before the scheduled Easter recess of both Houses of Parliament, the Government assembled a team of high-ranking public servants including national security adviser, Andrew Shearer and Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Andrew Colvin, to meet with executives from News Corporation, Fairfax, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and representatives from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) to discuss their concerns.
On 16 March 2015, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten revealed he had written to Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressing the Labor Party's concerns about the Bill's effect on the freedom of the press and journalists' ability to protect their sources, and stating that if the Government did not change the Bill to protect journalistic sources, the Labor Party would move to amend the Bill in the Senate.
Following negotiations with the Labor Party, the Government agreed to amend the Bill and introduce a warrant system. Law enforcement and other agencies seeking to view the metadata of journalists can only do so where a judicial officer or a legal member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has issued a warrant. This warrant can only be granted after arguments from both the agency seeking the metadata and a public interest advocate are heard.
The warrant system has been heavily criticised. Critics highlight the fact the public interest advocate, appointed by the Government, cannot contact the journalist whose metadata would be the subject of the warrant and cannot receive instructions from that journalist. Moreover, anyone who discloses information about a journalist information warrant and whether one has been applied for, granted, or not granted, can be punished with two years imprisonment.
Dr Adam Henschke, an academic working at the Australian National University, has argued that in the world of Wikileaks, whistleblowers may not wish to risk detection by working with journalists, and may simply choose to make a "wholesale dump" of information on the internet.
Cost
The Attorney General's Department commissioned consulting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) to provide high level costs for the initial implementation of the data retention scheme. PWC provided that report on 11 December 2014. In its final report, the PJCIS revealed that PWC had calculated the upfront capital costs of implementing data retention to be between approximately $188.8 million and $319.1 million.
After receiving submissions and hearing evidence on the issue of the cost from a number of stakeholders, including telecommunications providers Optus and Vodafone, and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) the Committee made a number of recommendations:
"The Committee recommends that the Government make a substantial contribution to the upfront capital costs of service providers implementing their data retention obligations."
"When designing the funding arrangements to give effect to this recommendation, the Government should ensure that an appropriate balance is achieved that accounts for the significant variations between the services, business models, sizes and financial positions of different companies within the telecommunications industry."
"That the model for funding service providers provides sufficient support for smaller service providers, who may not have sufficient capital budgets or operating cash flow to implement data retention, and privacy and security controls; without upfront assistance; incentives timely compliance with their data retention obligations; and does not result in service providers receiving windfall payments to operate and maintain existing legacy systems."
On 12 May 2015 Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey announced the Government would commit $131 million to assist telecommunications service providers with the cost of the scheme. This amount has drawn criticism from some in the telecommunications community. Laurie Patton, Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society said this amount is simply not enough and costs will be passed onto consumers in the form of higher internet fees.
"The Government’s original cost estimate was not based on widespread industry consultation and the Internet Society is concerned that the costs have been significantly underestimated, especially in respect of small to medium sized ISPs (Internet Service Providers) that don’t have the resources to undertake the work in-house and therefore will be required to pay for external assistance."
Lawfully circumventing the data retention scheme
Opposition to the mandatory data retention scheme has led to commentary from both media and politicians on ways in which the scheme may be lawfully circumvented. Writing in the Australian Financial Review, journalist Laura Tingle identified a number of methods for circumvention including the use of phone me via a provider Skype, advertising supported email services such as Google's Gmail and instant messaging service, Facebook Messenger.
In an interview with Sky News, then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull suggested journalists could avoid leaving a data trail through using over-the-top applications:
"If you have a device, a smartphone and if I call you through the mobile phone network then there will be a record at Telstra that I called your number."
"If on the other hand, I communicate via Skype, for a voice call, or Viber, or I send you a message on Whatsapp or Wickr or Threema or Signal or Telegram – there’s a gazillion of them – or indeed if we have a Facetime call, then all that the telco can see insofar as they can see anything is that my device had a connection with the, say, the Skype server or the Whatsapp server…. it doesn’t see anything happen with you…. It’s important I think for journalists to remember."
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, an outspoken opponent of the data retention scheme, delivered a speech in the Senate encouraging Australians to utilise virtual private networks (VPNs) and free services such as The Onion Router (Tor) to anonymously access the Internet. Senator Ludlam also organised events, cryptoparties, teaching constituents the ways they can avoid having telecommunications data retained.
The accuracy of this advice has, however, been questioned by technology experts. Swinburne University academic Philip Branch has pointed out that while the content of Skype calls is encrypted, the IP addresses of participants may be collected and traced back to individuals. Branch has also argued that many offshore email services are based in the United States, and as such Australian enforcement agencies may be able to access information through the "Five Eyes" agreement, under which Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada have committed to share intelligence.
As the law is able to be circumvented, the Australian Government is seeking to close the loophole offered by encrypted messaging services and TOR.
References
External links
Attorney General's Department (2015-01-16). "Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 - Submission 27." Available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/Data_Retention/Submissions
Australian Privacy Foundation (2015-01-19). "Inquiry into Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 - Submission 75" (http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/Data_Retention/Submissions). Parliament of Australia. pp. 4–6. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security 2015-02-27, "Advisory report on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014", Parliament of Australia. Available at:http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/Data_Retention/Report
The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (2015-03-19). "Revised Explanatory Memorandum on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015". Available at:http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fems%2Fr5375_ems_ac4732e1-5116-4d8f-8de5-0ead3828012c%22
2015 in Australian law
Acts of the Parliament of Australia
Data laws of Oceania |
46900313 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office%20of%20Personnel%20Management%20data%20breach | Office of Personnel Management data breach | In June 2015, the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that it had been the target of a data breach targeting personnel records. Approximately 22.1 million records were affected, including records related to government employees, other people who had undergone background checks, and their friends and family. One of the largest breaches of government data in U.S. history, information that was obtained and exfiltrated in the breach included personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers, as well as names, dates and places of birth, and addresses. State-sponsored hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government carried out the attack.
The data breach consisted of two separate, but linked, attacks. It is unclear when the first attack occurred but the second attack happened on May 7, 2014, when attackers posed as an employee of KeyPoint Government Solutions, a subcontracting company. The first attack was discovered March 20, 2014, but the second attack was not discovered until April 15, 2015. In the aftermath of the event, Katherine Archuleta, the director of OPM, and the CIO, Donna Seymour, resigned.
Discovery
The first breach, named "X1" by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was discovered March 20, 2014 when a third party notified DHS of data exfiltration from OPM's network.
With regards to the second breach, named "X2", the New York Times had reported that the infiltration was discovered using United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT)'s
Einstein intrusion-detection program. However, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Ars Technica, and Fortune later reported that it was unclear how the breach was discovered. They reported that it may have been a product demonstration of CyFIR, a commercial forensic product from a Manassas, Virginia security company CyTech Services that uncovered the infiltration. These reports were subsequently discussed by CyTech Services in a press release issued by the company on June 15, 2015 to clarify contradictions made by OPM spokesman Sam Schumach in a later edit of the Fortune article. However, it was not CyTech Services that uncovered the infiltration; rather, it was detected by OPM personnel using a software product of vendor Cylance. Ultimately, the conclusive House of Representatives' Majority Staff Report on the OPM breach discovered no evidence suggesting that CyTech Services knew of Cylance's involvement or had prior knowledge of an existing breach at the time of its product demonstration, leading to the finding that both tools independently "discovered" the malicious code running on the OPM network.
Data theft
Theft of security clearance information
The data breach compromised highly sensitive 127-page Standard Form 86 (SF 86) (Questionnaire for National Security Positions). SF-86 forms contain information about family members, college roommates, foreign contacts, and psychological information. Initially, OPM stated that family members' names were not compromised, but the OPM subsequently confirmed that investigators had "a high degree of confidence that OPM systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former, and prospective federal government employees, to include U.S. military personnel, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated." The Central Intelligence Agency, however, does not use the OPM system; therefore, it may not have been affected.
Theft of personal details
J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, wrote in a letter to OPM director Katherine Archuleta that, based on the incomplete information that the AFGE had received from OPM, "We believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees." Cox stated that the AFGE believes that the breach compromised military records, veterans' status information, addresses, dates of birth, job and pay history, health insurance and life insurance information, pension information, and data on age, gender, and race.
Theft of fingerprints
The stolen data included 5.6 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics expert Ramesh Kesanupalli said that because of this, secret agents were no longer safe, as they could be identified by their fingerprints, even if their names had been changed.
Perpetrators
The overwhelming consensus is that the cyberattack was carried out by state-sponsored attackers for the Chinese government. The attack originated in China, and the backdoor tool used to carry out the intrusion, PlugX, has been previously used by Chinese-language hacking groups that target Tibetan and Hong Kong political activists. The use of superhero names is also a hallmark of Chinese-linked hacking groups.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report on the breach strongly suggested the attackers were state actors due to the use of a very specific and highly developed piece of malware. U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Andy Ozment testified that the attackers had gained valid user credentials to the systems they were attacking, likely through social engineering. The breach also consisted of a malware package which installed itself within OPM's network and established a backdoor. From there, attackers escalated their privileges to gain access to a wide range of OPM's systems. In an article that came out before the House Oversight report Ars Technica reported on poor security practices at OPM contractors that at least one worker with root access to every row in every database was physically located in China and another contractor had two employees with Chinese passports,. However these were discussed as poor security practices, but not the actual source of the leak.
China denied responsibility for the attack.
In 2017, Chinese national Yu Pingan was arrested on charges of providing the "Sakula" malware used in the OPM data breach and other cyberintrusions. The FBI arrested Yu at Los Angeles International Airport after he had flown to the U.S. for a conference. Yu spent 18 months at the San Diego federal detention center and pleaded guilty to the federal offense of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and was subsequently deported to China. He was sentenced to time served in February 2019 and permitted to return to China; by the end of that year, Yu was working as a teacher at the government-run Shanghai Commercial School in central Shanghai. Yu was sentenced to pay $1.1 million in restitution to companies targeted by the malware, although there is little possibility of actual repayment. Yu was one of a very small number of Chinese hackers to be arrested and convicted in the U.S.; most hackers are never apprehended.
Motive
Whether the attack was motivated by commercial gain remains unclear. It has been suggested that hackers working for the Chinese military intend to compile a database of Americans using the data obtained from the breach.
Warnings
The OPM had been warned multiple times of security vulnerabilities and failings. A March 2015 OPM Office of the Inspector General semi-annual report to Congress warned of "persistent deficiencies in OPM's information system security program," including "incomplete security authorization packages, weaknesses in testing of information security controls, and inaccurate Plans of Action and Milestones."
A July 2014 story in The New York Times quoted unnamed senior American officials saying that Chinese hackers had broken into OPM. The officials said that the hackers seemed to be targeting files on workers who had applied for security clearances, and had gained access to several databases, but had been stopped before they obtained the security clearance information. In an interview later that month, Katherine Archuleta, the director of OPM, said that the most important thing was that no personal identification information had been compromised.
Responsibility
Some lawmakers made calls for Archuleta to resign citing mismanagement and that she was a political appointee and former Obama campaign official with no degree or experience in human resources. She responded that neither she nor OPM chief information officer Donna Seymour would do so. "I am committed to the work that I am doing at OPM," Archuleta told reporters. "I have trust in the staff that is there." On July 10, 2015, Archuleta resigned as OPM director.
Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page director of the Wall Street Journal, speaking on Fox News' Journal Editorial Report, criticized the appointment of Archuleta to be "in charge of one of the most sensitive agencies" in the U.S. government, saying: "What is her experience to run something like that? She was the national political director of Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. She's also the head of something called the Latina Initiative. She's a politico, right? ... That is the kind of person they have put in."
Security experts have stated that the biggest problem with the breach was not the failure to prevent remote break-ins, but the absence of mechanisms to detect outside intrusion and the lack of proper encryption of sensitive data. OPM CIO Donna Seymour countered that criticism by pointing to the agency's aging systems as the primary obstacle to putting such protections in place, despite having encryption tools available. DHS Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications Andy Ozment explained further that, "If an adversary has the credentials of a user on the network, then they can access data even if it's encrypted, just as the users on the network have to access data, and that did occur in this case. So encryption in this instance would not have protected this data."
Investigation
A July 22, 2015 memo by Inspector General Patrick McFarland said that OPM's Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour was slowing her investigation into the breach, leading him to wonder whether or not she was acting in good faith. He did not raise any specific claims of misconduct, but he did say that her office was fostering an "atmosphere of mistrust" by giving him "incorrect or misleading" information. On Monday 22 February 2016, CIO Donna Seymour resigned, just two days before she was scheduled to testify before a House panel that is continuing to investigate the data breach.
In 2018, the OPM was reportedly still vulnerable to data thefts, with 29 of the Government Accountability Office's 80 recommendations remaining unaddressed. In particular, the OPM was reportedly still using passwords that had been stolen in the breach. It also had not discontinued the practice of sharing administrative accounts between users, despite that practice having been recommended against as early as 2003.
Reactions
FBI Director James Comey stated: "It is a very big deal from a national security perspective and from a counterintelligence perspective. It's a treasure trove of information about everybody who has worked for, tried to work for, or works for the United States government."
Speaking at a forum in Washington, D.C., Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said: "You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I don't think we'd hesitate for a minute."
See also
2020 United States Treasury and Department of Commerce data breach
Cyberwarfare by China
Operation Aurora
Yahoo! data breaches
References
Data breaches in the United States
Cyberattacks
Cyberwarfare in China
Cyberwarfare in the United States
United States Office of Personnel Management |
46902124 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern%20Espionage | Modern Espionage | "Modern Espionage" is the eleventh episode of the sixth season of the television sitcom Community. It was written by Mark Stegemann, and directed by Rob Schrab. It is the 108th episode overall and was first released on Yahoo! Screen in the United States on May 19, 2015. The episode is the third "paintball episode" of the series after "Modern Warfare" (season one) and the two-part "A Fistful of Paintballs" / "For a Few Paintballs More" (season two).
Plot
Starburns leaves Vicki's one-woman show and is accosted by Todd in the parking lot. They are both involved in a game of paintball assassin driven underground by Frankie's "Cleaner Greendale" initiative. While Starburns gains the upper hand both players are ultimately defeated by a mysterious player who shoots them with silver pellets.
The following morning Frankie asks Jeff to introduce an award to deputy custodian Lapari (Kumail Nanjiani) at the gala for a Cleaner Greendale in order to be seen as denouncing the underground game. Although he is reluctant, Jeff approaches the study group and asks them not to participate in the game. They all agree only to turn on Chang when he reveals he is playing, revealing that they are all playing as well. Jeff is drawn into the game as he tries to prevent his friends from being shot.
Abed discovers that the game is being run on an encrypted server with signs pointing to someone from City College being involved. The group decide to look for the secret player, Silver Ballz, and defeat him. They are given permission to go forward from Dean Pelton who feels irrelevant because of Frankie and dubs the group Deanforce 1.
While trying to track Silver Ballz Abed and Annie are led to Koogler. Abed manages to recover Koogler's encryption key which reveals that Silver Ballz plans to ambush Lapari at the gala.
The group split up at the gala; Britta and Elroy take out the kitchen staff who are all secretly playing but realize none of them are Silver Ballz. While presenting the award to Lapari, Jeff panics and shoots a non-playing audience member in front of Frankie.
He is saved from punishment by the arrival of the Dean who was assigned a non-active role scouting the perimeter and realized that the custodial staff, finally fed up with the mess the Greendale students make during paintball, are the ones behind the new game. The gala erupts in a shoot out with only Lapari, Jeff and the Dean making it out.
Lapari lures Jeff and the Dean into the museum of custodial arts where he reveals that he organized the game in order to fight against Frankie and her attempts to clean up Greendale and change the spirit of the school. His words convince the Dean, who turns on Jeff, however Jeff convinces the two of them that Frankie only wants what is best for the school. Frankie agrees not to fire any of them as long as they put their guns down, however faced with the possibility of winning the final prize they all shoot each other once Frankie is gone meaning there is no true winner.
The following week the group put on bibs and bonnets and pretend to be babies as punishment for not listening to Frankie.
In the final tag Garrett performs his one man show which mocks Vicki's one woman show, taking aim at the fact that she used her dead mother as material. His show is interrupted by Vicki herself who poignantly shares what her mother meant to her only for Vicki and Garrett to reveal that it is all an act and that they will be performing together in a third play. Vicki's mother is in the audience and upon hearing she is alive the audience boos.
Cultural references
"Modern Espionage" features spy-movie homages and tropes, in contrast to the action movie setting of "Modern Warfare", the western setting of "A Fistful of Paintballs", and the Star Wars homages of "For a Few Paintballs More". The opening fight homages the action and costumes in the parking lot scene at the beginning of the first Highlander movie. The group's codenames are references to actors who have portrayed Batman in film, television, and animation, with Jeff as Michael Keaton, Britta as George Clooney, Abed as Christian Bale, Annie as Adam West, Elroy as Val Kilmer, and the Dean as "Voice of Diedrich Bader"; additionally, their collective chat is called the Belfry, referring to one of the Batman Family's headquarters. Jeff mentions Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man. Lapari mispronounces M. Night Shyamalan's name and gets corrected by Abed. Garrett mentions comedian Andy Kaufman. Koogler references Fight Club. Frankie quotes Joseph Campbell. The scene where Dean Pelton is attacked in the elevator is a nod to a similar scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie directed by Community producers/directors Joe and Anthony Russo, in which Danny Pudi cameos.
Production
On March 15, 2015, it was announced that the series began filming a third "paintball assassin" episode following the season one episode "Modern Warfare" and season two's two-part episode "A Fistful of Paintballs"/"For a Few Paintballs More".
Critical reception
Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A" rating, calling it "fun and sharp", adding that "despite the revamped cast, [it] feels remarkably like old-school Community. Eric Goldman of IGN rated the episode a 9.5 of 10, stating "this quickly stands out as the best installment yet this year and a reminder of just how wonderful this show is. Overcoming the difficulties in doing yet another sequel episode to one of the most popular ideas the series has ever offered, "Modern Espionage" once again showed that paintball brings out the best in this series". Alan Sepinwall of HitFix claimed that the episode "made up in execution what it lacked in originality. It found an actual emotional story – the campus' reaction to all the changes Frankie has implemented, and all the responsibility she's taken away from the Dean – to wrap the paintball game around, and the various spy thriller tropes gave it a specificity in the same way that season 2's Spaghetti Western version had."
References
External links
"Modern Espionage" at Yahoo! Screen.com
2015 American television episodes
Community (season 6) episodes
Paintball-related media |
46924613 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS%20X%20El%20Capitan | OS X El Capitan | OS X El Capitan ( ) () is the twelfth major release of macOS (named OS X at the time of El Capitan's release), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh. It focuses mainly on performance, stability, and security. Following the Northern California landmark-based naming scheme introduced with OS X Mavericks, El Capitan was named after a rock formation in Yosemite National Park. El Capitan is the final version to be released under the name OS X. OS X El Capitan received far better reviews than did Yosemite.
The first beta of OS X El Capitan was released to developers shortly following the WWDC keynote on June 8, 2015. The first public beta was made available on July 9, 2015. There were multiple betas released after the keynote. OS X El Capitan was released to end users on September 30, 2015, as a free upgrade through the Mac App Store.
System requirements
All Macintosh computers that can run Mountain Lion, Mavericks, or Yosemite can run El Capitan, although not all of its features will work on older computers. For example, Apple notes that the newly available Metal API is available on "all Macs since 2012".
These computers can run El Capitan, provided they have at least 2GB of RAM:
MacBook: Late 2008 or newer
MacBook Air: Late 2008 or newer
MacBook Pro: Mid 2007 or newer
Mac Mini: Early 2009 or newer
iMac: Mid 2007 or newer
Mac Pro: Early 2008 or newer
Xserve: Early 2009
Of these computers, the following models were equipped with 1GB RAM as the standard option on the base model when they were shipped originally. They can only run OS X El Capitan if they have at least 2GB of RAM.
iMac: Mid 2007 - Early 2008
Mac Mini: Early 2009
The following computers support features such as Handoff, Instant Hotspot, AirDrop between Mac computers and iOS devices, as well as the new Metal API:
iMac: Late 2012 or newer
MacBook: Early 2015 or newer
MacBook Air: Mid 2012 or newer
MacBook Pro: Mid 2012 or newer
Mac Mini: Late 2012 or newer
Mac Pro: Late 2013
The upgrade varies in size depending upon which Apple Mac computer it is being installed on; in most scenarios, it will require about 6 GB of disk space.
Features
OS X El Capitan includes features to improve the security, performance, design and usability of OS X. Compared to OS X Yosemite, Apple says that opening PDFs is four times faster, app switching and viewing messages in Mail is twice as fast and launching apps is 40% faster. The maximum amount of memory that could be allocated to the graphics processor has been increased from 1024 MB to 1536 MB on Macs with an Intel HD 4000 GPU. OS X El Capitan supports Metal, Apple's graphics API introduced in iOS 8 to speed up performance in games and professional applications. Apple's typeface San Francisco replaces Helvetica Neue as the system typeface. OS X El Capitan also adopts LibreSSL in replacement of OpenSSL used in previous versions.
Window management
OS X El Capitan introduces new window management features such as creating a full-screen split screen limited to two app windows side by side in full screen by pressing the green button on left upper corner of the window or Control+Cmd+F keyboard shortcut, then snapping any supported other window to that full screen application. This feature is slightly similar to, although less extensive than, the snap-assist feature in Windows 7 (and later) and several Linux desktop environments, such as GNOME. OS X El Capitan improves Mission Control to incorporate this feature across multiple spaces. It also enables users to spot the pointer more easily by enlarging it by shaking the mouse or swiping a finger back and forth on the trackpad.
Applications
Messages and Mail
OS X El Capitan adds multi-touch gestures to applications like Mail and Messages that allow a user to delete or mark emails or conversations by swiping a finger on a multi-touch device, such as a trackpad. OS X also analyzes the contents of individual emails in Mail and uses the gathered information in other applications, such as Calendar. For example, an invitation in Mail can automatically be added as a Calendar event.
Maps
Apple Maps in El Capitan shows public transit information similar to Maps in iOS 9. This feature was limited to a handful of cities upon launch: Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Shanghai, Toronto and Washington D.C.
Notes
The Notes application receives an overhaul, similar to Notes in iOS 9. Both applications have more powerful text-processing capabilities, such as to-do lists (like in the Reminders application), inline webpage previews, photos and videos, digital sketches, map locations and other documents and media types. Notes replaces traditional IMAP-based syncing with iCloud, which offers better end-to-end encryption and faster syncing.
Safari
Safari in El Capitan lets users pin tabs for frequently accessed websites to the tab bar, similar to Firefox and Google Chrome. Users are able to quickly identify and mute tabs that play audio without having to search for individual tabs. Safari supports AirPlay video streaming to an Apple TV without the need to broadcast the entire webpage. Safari extensions are now hosted and signed by Apple as part of the updated Apple Developer program and they received native support for content blocking, allowing developers to block website components (such as advertisements) without JavaScript injection. The app also allows the user to customize the font and background of the Reader mode.
Spotlight
Spotlight is improved with more contextual information such as the weather, stocks, news and sports scores. It is also able to process queries in natural language. For example, users can type "Show me pictures that I took in Yosemite National Park in July 2014" and Spotlight will use that request to bring up the corresponding info. The app can now be resized and moved across the screen.
Photos
Photos introduced editing extensions, which allow Photos to use editing tools from other apps.
Other applications found in OS X 10.11 El Capitan
AirPort Utility
App Store
Archive Utility
Audio MIDI Setup
Automator
Bluetooth File Exchange
Boot Camp Assistant
Calculator
Calendar
Chess
ColorSync Utility)
Console
Contacts
Dictionary
Digital Color Meter
Disk Utility
DVD Player
FaceTime
Font Book
Game Center
GarageBand (may not be pre-installed)
Grab
Grapher
iBooks (now Apple Books)
iMovie (may not be pre-installed)
iTunes
Image Capture
Ink (can only be accessed by connecting a graphics tablet to your Mac)
Keychain Access
Keynote (may not be pre-installed)
Migration Assistant
Numbers (may not be pre-installed)
Pages (may not be pre-installed)
Photo Booth
Preview
QuickTime Player
Reminders
Script Editor
Stickies
System Information
Terminal
TextEdit
Time Machine
VoiceOver Utility
X11/XQuartz (may not be pre-installed)
System Integrity Protection
OS X El Capitan has a new security feature called System Integrity Protection (SIP, sometimes referred to as "rootless") that protects certain system processes, files and folders from being modified or tampered with by other processes even when executed by the root user or by a user with root privileges (sudo). Apple says that the root user can be a significant risk factor to the system's security, especially on systems with a single user account on which that user is also the administrator. System Integrity Protection is enabled by default, but can be disabled.
Reception
Upon release, OS X El Capitan was met with positive reception from both users and critics, with praise mostly going towards the overall functionality of the new features and improved stability. Dieter Bohn of The Verge awarded the operating system a score of 8.5 out of 10; while Jason Snell of Macworld was also positive, rating it 4.5 out of 5. Many people criticized Apple's native apps for not having improved beyond third-party applications.
Issues
After the 10.11.4 update, many users started reporting that their MacBooks were freezing, requiring a hard reboot. This issue mostly affects Early 2015 MacBook Pro computers, although many others have reported freezes in other models. Several users created videos on YouTube which showed the freezes. Soon after this, Apple released the 10.11.5 update, which contained stability improvements. Apple later acknowledged these problems, recommending their users to update to the last point release.
After the December 13, 2016, release of Security Update 2016–003, users reported problems with the WindowServer process becoming unresponsive, causing the GUI to freeze and sometimes necessitating a hard reboot to fix. In response, on January 17, 2017, Apple released Security Update 2016-003 Supplemental (10.11.6) to fix "a kernel issue that may cause your Mac to occasionally become unresponsive" and at the same time released an updated version of Security Update 2016-003 which includes the fix released in the supplemental. Users who have not previously installed Security Update 2016-003 are advised to install the updated version to reach build 15G1217, while users who have already installed the December 13, 2016 Security Update 2016-003 only need to install the supplemental update.
Release history
References
External links
– official site
OS X El Capitan download page at Apple
11
X86-64 operating systems
2015 software
Computer-related introductions in 2015 |
46991545 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon%20Zero%20Dawn | Horizon Zero Dawn | Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The plot follows Aloy, a young huntress in a world overrun by machines, who sets out to uncover her past. The player uses ranged weapons, a spear, and stealth to combat mechanical creatures and other enemy forces. A skill tree provides the player with new abilities and bonuses. The player can explore the open world to discover locations and take on side quests. It was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2017 and Microsoft Windows in 2020.
Horizon Zero Dawn is Guerrilla Games' first intellectual property since Killzone in 2004 and its first role-playing game. Development began in 2011 after the completion of Killzone 3, with director Mathijs de Jonge considering it the riskiest idea pitched at the time. The game engine, Decima, was developed for Killzone: Shadow Fall and altered for Horizon Zero Dawn. Being set in a post-apocalyptic setting, anthropologists were consulted to authenticate the world's decay over a millennium. The soundtrack was led by composer Joris de Man, featuring contributions from The Flight.
Horizon Zero Dawn was praised by critics for its open world, story, visuals, combat, characterization, and the performance of voice actress Ashly Burch; however, the dialogue, melee combat, and character models received some criticism. The game won numerous awards and sold over 20 million copies by February 2022, making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games. An expansion, The Frozen Wilds, was released in November 2017. A sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, was released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on 18 February 2022.
Gameplay
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game played from a third-person view. Players take control of Aloy, a hunter who ventures through a post-apocalyptic land ruled by robotic creatures. Aloy can kill enemies in a variety of ways – setting traps such as tripwires using the Tripcaster, shooting them with arrows, using explosives, and a spear. Machine components, including electricity and the metal they are composed of, are vital to Aloy's survival; she can loot their remains for crafting resources. Ammo, resource satchels, pouches, quivers, resistance, antidotes, health potions, and traps can all be crafted. Weapons have modification slots for dealing more damage. Aloy wears a Focus, a small head piece that scans machines to determine their susceptibilities, identify their location, their level, and the nature of loot they will drop. One machine, the Stalker, can enable cloaking technology to avert the gaze of Aloy's Focus scan. Machines attack with defensive and offensive measures, and in either case react to a perceived threat by charging at it with brute force or projectiles. Exhibiting the behaviour of wild animals, some machines are inclined to move in herds, and others, with the ability to fly, do so in flocks. Unless hacked with the Override Tool, or sufficiently hit with corruption arrows, machines do not exert aggressive force against each other. Aloy also engages in battle with human enemies, such as bandits and the Eclipse cult.
Aloy can dodge, sprint, slide, or roll to evade her enemies' advances. Hiding in foliage to ambush nearby enemies can ensure immediate takedowns. Swimming may reach enemies stealthily or places otherwise unreachable on foot. She is able to hack a selection of machines with the Override Tool, some of which can be turned into makeshift mounts. Explorable ruins called Cauldrons unlock additional machines to override. Three categories occur in the skill tree: "Prowler" concerns stealth, "Brave" improves combat, and "Forager" increases healing and gathering capabilities. To level up, Aloy attains experience points from individual kills and completing quests. Upgrades in each category result in more adept use of the skills learned, with "Prowler" leading to silent takedowns, "Brave" to aiming a bow in slow motion, and "Forager" to an enlarged medicine pouch. The Frozen Wilds added "Traveler", which unlocks the ability to jump off a mount to attack enemies. The game has a seamless open world with a day-night cycle and dynamic weather system.
The map is composed of forest, jungle, desert, and snowy mountain regions. Mountainous terrain is traversed with the employment of parkour, and aided by the use of zip-lines. Corrupted Zones constitute areas that heighten difficulty and are populated by corrupted machines that behave with more aggression. To uncover more of the map, Aloy must scale large giraffe-like machines known as Tallnecks. Twenty-five robotic creature designs are present in the game. Save points and fast travel can be accessed by interacting with campfires, once discovered. The quest structure unfolds to accommodate the exploration of tribes, while the main story covers the entire world. Side quests involve Aloy completing tasks, like gathering materials, coming to the aid of individuals in danger of being killed, solving mysteries, assuming control of bandit camps, eliminating criminals and more difficult machines, accomplishing various challenges at any of the five Hunting Grounds, and obtaining an ancient armour that makes Aloy almost impervious to damage. A dialogue wheel is used to communicate with non-player characters. Collectibles include vantages that offer visual information of the Old World, metal flowers that contain poetry, and old relics, such as ancient mugs and tribal artifacts.
Synopsis
Setting
The story is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, between the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, in the 31st century. Humans live in scattered, primitive tribes with varying levels of technological development. Their technologically advanced predecessors are remembered as the "Old Ones". Large robotic creatures, known as "machines", dominate the Earth. For the most part, they peacefully coexist with humans, who occasionally hunt them for parts. However, a phenomenon known as the "Derangement" has caused machines to become more aggressive towards humans, and larger and deadlier machines have begun to appear. There are four tribes that are prominently featured: the Nora, the Banuk, the Carja and the Oseram. The Nora are fierce hunter-gatherers who live in the mountains and worship nature as the "All-Mother". The Carja are desert-dwelling city builders who worship the Sun. The Banuk consists of wandering clans made up of hunters and shamans who live in snowy mountains and worship the machines and their "songs". The Oseram are tinkerers and salvagers known for their metalworking, brewing, and talent as warriors.
Plot
Aloy (Ashly Burch) was cast out from the Nora tribe at birth and raised by a fellow outcast named Rost (JB Blanc). As a child (Ava Potter), she obtained a Focus, a small augmented reality device that gives her special perceptive abilities, after accidentally discovering a cave used by the Old Ones.
At an early age, Aloy becomes curious about her mother. Rost tells her only the tribe's leaders, the Matriarchs, would know, but as outcasts they have no right to know such things. After Aloy saves a Nora boy only to watch him be reprimanded for speaking to her, Rost finally admits that the Matriarchs might tell her who her mother is if she were to win the "Proving", a competition to earn the right to become a Nora Brave, and by extension, a member of the tribe. Anyone who finishes the competition becomes a Brave, but the winner may ask anything of the Matriarchs. Aloy then spends several years training in combat, physical conditioning, and survival under Rost's instruction.
Upon reaching the age of 19, Aloy is permitted to take part in a festival leading up to the Proving. She is treated with distrust and contempt by most of the villagers and witnesses a group of outsiders arrive to deliver a message of peace from the Sun King of the Carja, Avad. One of them, an Oseram named Olin (Chook Sibtain), is also wearing a Focus. Olin acts suspiciously and refuses to tell Aloy where he found the Focus. Aloy wins the Proving, but the Nora are attacked by masked cultists and most of the newly minted Braves are killed. Aloy is almost killed by their leader, Helis (Crispin Freeman), who also wears a Focus, but Rost sacrifices himself to save her. When Aloy awakes, the Matriarch Teersa explains that when she was an infant, she was found at the foot of a sealed door within the Nora's sacred mountain. To find the cultists, the Matriarchs name Aloy as a "Seeker", allowing her to leave the Nora's "Sacred Land".
When Aloy tracks down Olin, he reveals that the cultists are part of a secretive Carja faction called the "Eclipse" and admits to working for them for the safety of his family. He indicates that Aloy was targeted due to her resemblance to an Old World scientist named Dr. Elisabet Sobeck (also voiced by Burch), and it was by seeing her through his Focus that they were made aware of her existence. Aloy locates the ruined corporate campus of Faro Automated Solutions at "Maker's End" and discovers that the Old World was destroyed nearly 1,000 years ago after Faro lost control of its automated "peacekeeper" military robots. The robots, which could self-replicate and consumed biomass as fuel, overran the planet and consumed the biosphere, stripping Earth of all life. Zero Dawn, a project spearheaded by Dr. Sobeck, was then initiated using funding from Faro to create an automated terraforming system, with the goal of deactivating the robots and restoring both the Earth and the human race.
Aloy is contacted by Sylens (Lance Reddick), a wanderer interested in uncovering what happened to the Old Ones. Aloy eventually learns that Dr. Sobeck was sent to an "Orbital Launch Base" to complete Zero Dawn and Sylens reveals that the base is located under the Citadel, the center of Eclipse power. Aloy accesses the base and inside, she learns that Zero Dawn was a vast underground system of databases, factories, and cloning facilities controlled by a highly advanced artificial intelligence, GAIA (Lesley Ewen). As Earth was consumed, GAIA activated an octed of subfunctions, starting with MINERVA, who broke the encryption over the course of decades for the FARO war machines and built the Spire, which broadcast a signal to disable them. GAIA then began directing the rejuvenation the atmosphere and oceans, eventually reseeding life on Earth using stored DNA and specially built machines. Finally, humans would be artificially cloned by GAIA and sent out to repopulate the planet.
However, Aloy discovers that APOLLO, the system intended to educate the clones and ensure they would not repeat their predecessors' mistakes, was sabotaged by Theodore Faro, CEO of FARO industries; blaming human knowledge for enabling him to create the warbots and not wanting humans to know that he was responsible for the devastation of Earth, Faro erased APOLLO and murdered all of Zero Dawn's chief scientists before going into hiding. The loss of APOLLO resulted in the nascent human societies ignorant of the past and therefore unable to rebuild all that was lost.
Sylens and Aloy discover that the Eclipse are secretly controlled by HADES (John Gonzalez), one of GAIA's subsystems designed to enact "controlled extinction" if the outcome of Zero Dawn was not favorable for human existence. Reaching Dr. Sobeck's office, Aloy downloads a registry to give her access to the door from which she was born. She is captured by Helis and sentenced to death at the Citadel, but escapes with the help of Sylens. Aloy helps the Nora fight off an Eclipse siege of the sacred mountain and unlocks the door. She finds a recording left behind by GAIA, revealing that a signal of unknown origin corrupted HADES' programming, causing it to attempt to seize control of her functions before GAIA self-destructed to prevent the takeover. Without GAIA to maintain the terraforming process, the full restoration of Earth was left incomplete. Before deletion, GAIA engineered the creation of a clone of Dr. Sobeck in the form of Aloy, in the hope that she would find GAIA's message, destroy HADES, and restore GAIA's functions. Aloy learns that Dr. Sobeck sacrificed her life to stop the Faro warbots from finding and destroying GAIA.
Aloy manages to obtain the master override necessary to destroy HADES from GAIA's core facility. Sylens admits that he was the original founder of the Eclipse after restoring HADES, and now wishes to atone for his mistakes. With Sylens' help, Aloy deduces that HADES intends to use the "Spire", a monument built over the Carja capital city of Meridian, to reawaken the Faro warbots and fulfill its purpose. Aloy kills Helis and helps fight off waves of corrupted machines, before stabbing HADES with Sylens' modified lance and activating the master override, ending the war. She journeys to Dr. Sobeck's old home, finding her bones in her environment suit, and has a moment of mourning for her predecessor. In a post-credits scene, HADES is shown to still be alive, but trapped by Sylens, who intends to interrogate HADES to find out who sent the signal that activated it.
The Frozen Wilds
Aloy travels to the "Cut", the home of the Banuk tribe, after hearing word of dangerous machines appearing and a mountain belching smoke. She learns from Aratak (Richard Neil), chieftain of the largest Banuk clan, that the Banuk have been attempting to battle a "Daemon" on the mountain, "Thunder's Drum", which has corrupted the machines of the Cut. However, their first attack had been a failure, and their shaman, Ourea, had disappeared afterwards. Aloy searches for Ourea, coming across strange robotic towers which both control and repair the corrupted machines. She finds Ourea (Necar Zadegan) in an Old World facility that had been converted into a Banuk shrine and is housing an artificial intelligence the shaman calls the "Spirit". Aloy is able to make contact with the Spirit, which warns Ourea that the Daemon is blocking its transmissions before being cut off. Aloy and Ourea agree to work together to save the Spirit. Per Ourea's advice, Aloy defeats Aratak in a hunting competition, taking his place as chieftain. She also discovers that Aratak and Ourea are siblings.
Aloy, Ourea, and Aratak head for Thunder's Drum. They infiltrate the Old World facility built inside the mountain, where Aloy discovers that the Spirit is actually CYAN (Laurel Lefkow), a highly advanced AI designed to prevent the Yellowstone Caldera from erupting. Traveling further inside, they discover that the Daemon has already overtaken much of the facility, but CYAN suggests using lava from the caldera to destroy the infected areas while preserving the facility. It is also revealed that the Daemon is in fact HEPHAESTUS (Stefan Ashton Frank), another of GAIA's subsystems that manufactures machines. The group fights through HEPHAESTUS' defenses and Ourea sacrifices herself to override CYAN's core, allowing it to escape. CYAN transfers its core systems to an auxiliary data center and initiates self-destruction of the facility. Aloy and Aratak narrowly escape. Aloy returns to the Banuk Shrine, where CYAN is waiting; the AI provides additional information about the Old World but warns that HEPHAESTUS is still active somewhere and will continue to build machines designed specifically to kill humans, which is why it tried to seize control of CYAN and its facilities. Returning Aratak to his previous position as Chieftain, Aloy departs the Cut.
Development
Guerrilla Games began developing Horizon Zero Dawn following the release of Killzone 3 in 2011. When conceiving the idea for a new game, about 40 concepts were pitched. Among these was Horizon Zero Dawn, which game director Mathijs de Jonge considered "the most risky" of the concepts and was pitched in 2010 by art director Jan-Bart van Beek. When this concept was chosen, a team of 10–20 began building prototypes of the game. Approximately 20 different stories were written for the game, exploring varying concepts for the game, such as different player characters. John Gonzalez, who previously acted as lead writer for Fallout: New Vegas (2010), was hired to write the game's story as narrative director, with Ben McCaw as lead writer. The main elements of the story and the character of Aloy remained intact since early development. Upon the completion of Killzone: Shadow Fall in late 2013, the remainder of the staff began working on Horizon Zero Dawn. Guerrilla cancelled another game to allow the entire team to focus on the development of Horizon. Sony would later admit to being reluctant about having the main character be female and conducted focus testing to see if such a decision was marketable. The game had an estimated budget of over 45 million.
The game's concept explores the juxtaposition between the danger and beauty of the world, particularly analysing the concept of humanity not being the dominant species. The team aimed to emphasise the game's exploration element by featuring a quest system, as well as including items throughout the world that can be used to craft or replenish health. The team wished for the game to have a simple user interface design, specifically avoiding complicated menus for crafting, and considered the game to be a technical challenge. They felt that the game engine, Decima, which was designed for games such as the Killzone series and was previously used for Killzone: Shadow Fall, was difficult to alter for Horizon, in terms of draw distance and loading. To discover how some game elements work differently in open world games, the team sought help from talent in the design, art and technical fields. In extrapolating the game world, Guerrilla turned to anthropologists and researched the formation of tribal cultures as well as how building materials would decay over a millennium. The game's quest system and narrative design took inspiration from other role-playing video games, ranging from the "Relaxed" quest design of RPG Maker games to the "Strict" quest design of hack and slash games. They defined "Relaxed" quest design as having few centralised systems for managing quest progression, and "Strict" quest design as having a rigid structure and predefined elements, with the team deciding the latter.
Lance Reddick and Ashly Burch's involvement was revealed in January 2017. Burch voiced Aloy, whose likeness was portrayed by Hannah Hoekstra and motion capture was performed by Amanda Piery in London. Following an auditioning process in 2014, Burch was called in to do the E3 2015 trailer and proceeded to work on the game for two years in Los Angeles, providing facial motion capture as well.
The game's soundtrack was composed by Joris de Man, The Flight, Niels van der Leest, and Jonathan Williams, with vocalist Julie Elven serving as the primary performer. Lucas van Tol, music supervisor and senior sound designer, provided the composers with a game design document, insisting on an intimate sound for the score. For the tribal theme, they experimented with bows on piano wire and resonator guitars (with layered tracks of harmonicas on top of the latter) and playing cellos with plectrums or the back of a bow to convey how contemporary instruments would be played by someone to whom the instruments were unknown; de Man also used a contrabass flute and made synth pads from blowing on a Thai bamboo flute, noting "distant pads and ambiences, and wide, spread out chords seemed to work well". Circuit-bent synthesizers and percussive loops, run through impulse responses of metal and iron being beaten, were devoted to making a thematic identifier for the machines based on technology and metal. Van Tol required that the music be supplied in stems so that different pieces could be combined. The positive response to the first E3 trailer's main theme led it to be included in the main menu. The composers also did the motion capture for diegetic music vignettes, portraying in-game tribal musicians. The four-hour soundtrack was released via digital music platforms on 10 March 2017.
Release
The concept art as well as the game's codename, Horizon, were leaked in September 2014. Horizon Zero Dawn was officially announced during Sony's E3 2015 press conference. The game was featured as the cover story in the September 2015 issue of Edge and the October 2016 issue of Game Informer. At E3 2016, Sony had a life-sized cosplay version of one of the machines greet the trade show attendees. Originally set to be released in 2016, the game was delayed to February 2017 to be further polished. It was released to manufacturing in late January 2017, and launched to North American markets on 28 February 2017, in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on 1 March and Asia on 2 March for the PlayStation 4. Horizon Zero Dawn is forward compatible with the PS4 Pro, allowing it to run up to 4K resolution. In April 2017, a making-of documentary was released on Dutch public television. By March 2017, a story expansion had already been set in motion. New Game Plus, an Ultra Hard difficulty mode, additional trophies and aesthetic features were introduced with a patch released in July 2017. The expansion, The Frozen Wilds, was released on 7 November 2017. The Complete Edition, which contains the base game, The Frozen Wilds, and all additional downloadable content (DLC), was released for the PlayStation 4 on 5 December 2017 and Microsoft Windows via Steam on 7 August 2020 and GOG on 24 November 2020. A tabletop game adaptation is being developed by Steamforged Games.
Reception
Horizon Zero Dawn received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Destructoids Chris Carter commended Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick for their performances, with the character of Aloy receiving credit for maintaining a "captivating" and "interesting" consistency in the narrative and action sequences. Carter also lauded the focus on exploration and discovery, which he said grew more effective as he traversed more of the land. The game world itself was subject to compliment for its "beautiful" day-night cycle and weather system. According to Carter, the challenging nature of the machines and varied methods with which to battle them brought a real sense of fun to the combat. Matt Buchholtz of EGMNow likewise praised Burch as well as the game world, which he found to be mesmerising. Considered the most powerful part of the game, the Focus feature gained approval for complementing the combat in a way that "forces you to become a hunter". Writing for Game Informer, Jeff Marchiafava opined that, unlike with other open world video games, searching for audio logs and emails provided the plot with a "remarkable sense of discovery". He was thankful that story-based missions dominated the overall experience, arguing that they worked to detail the world and inspired gameplay variation.
Peter Brown at GameSpot reflected on Aloy's character development with amazement. One constant thrill to Brown came from combating the machines, which he said took the spotlight and never lost its flair. He appreciated also that the main quests encouraged one to explore the environment. Zoe Delahunty-Light, writing for GamesRadar+, was fascinated with the intricacies of the world and found integral value in the lore scattered among the ruins. She echoed Brown's view that fighting machines maintained excitement throughout. Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann declared Horizon Zero Dawn as "a near-perfect story" with a satisfying conclusion, and emphasised that it contained substantial depth. Lucy O'Brien at IGN admired its weight in meaning, while welcoming the charm of the protagonist's personality. A considerable impression was made with the combat, which was stated as the most compelling accomplishment. Writing for Polygon, Philip Kollar applauded the game as what he dubbed the "refutation" of Guerrilla Games' past work, a change of pace he described as "refreshing". Aloy was observed to be perfectly coupled with the story in that she offered the curiosity to seek out its many mysteries. Kollar perceived the Focus as "key to combat" and the machines as engaging foes in battle. Colm Ahern of VideoGamer.com wrote in his verdict, "Destroying large robot beasts while frantically switching between weapons is intoxicating, but the strength of Horizon Zero Dawn is in Aloy's engaging quest to find out who she really is".
Conversely, Carter saw the characters beyond Aloy and Sylens as uninteresting and bland in their designs. He also disparaged the human artificial intelligence as being worse than that of the machines. To Buchholtz, the weapon system in relation to ammunition appeared convoluted; the ability to only purchase one item at a time "a massive oversight"; and Aloy's ability to only grab marked ledges was confusing for a "parkour master". Marchiafava's only major criticism was that it held too familiar roots with established open world formula. Although Brown drew enjoyment from other aspects of combat, he disparaged the melee for its ineffectiveness and simplicity. Delahunty-Light concurred that the melee fell short of its potential, and also took issue with the jumping mechanic. O'Brien felt the dialogue occasionally contradicted the otherwise intelligent narrative. Kollar bemoaned the character models as its one visual shortcoming.
Game director Yoko Taro listed it as one of his favourite PlayStation 4 games. Entertainment Weekly ranked it as the fourth best game of 2017, GamesRadar+ ranked it second on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017, and Eurogamer ranked it 31st on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017". The Verge named Horizon Zero Dawn as one of the 15 Best Games of 2017. In Game Informers Reader's Choice Best of 2017 Awards, it took the lead for "Best Sony Game", coming up in second place for both "Best Action Game" and "Game of the Year". Game Informer also awarded it "Best Sony Exclusive" in their Best of 2017 Awards, and also gave it the awards for "Best Story" and "Best Character" (Aloy) in their 2017 Action Game of the Year Awards. EGMNow ranked the game third in their list of 25 Best Games of 2017, while Polygon ranked it eighth on their list of the 50 best games of 2017. The game won the Gold Prize and Users Choice Prize at the 2017 PlayStation Awards. It was nominated for "Best PS4 Game" at Destructoids Game of the Year Awards 2017. It also won the awards for "Best PlayStation 4 Game" and "Best Graphics" at IGNs Best of 2017 Awards, whereas its other nominations were for "Game of the Year", "Best Action-Adventure Game", and "Best Art Direction". It was nominated for "Best Looking Game" at Giant Bombs 2017 Game of the Year Awards. In 2018, it won the awards for Best PS4 Game, Best Performance for Ashly Burch, Best Art Direction, Best Soundtrack, Best Story, Best Post-Release Content, Best PlayStation Console Exclusive, and Best Use of PS4 Pro at PlayStation Blog's Game of the Year Awards.
Sales
Horizon Zero Dawn was the best-selling game during its release week in the UK. It surpassed No Man's Sky as the biggest launch of a new intellectual property on the PlayStation 4 and was the most successful launch of any kind on the platform since Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, as well as Guerrilla Games' biggest debut to date. The game sold close to 117,000 copies in its first week in Japan, becoming the second best-selling game that week. Horizon Zero Dawn was the second most downloaded game on the North American PlayStation Store for February. Because its launch day occurred on the last day of February, only one day of sales was counted. Within two weeks it sold 2.6 million units.
It was the best-selling game in its week of release in Australia. In March 2017, it was the second best-selling game in the UK and the highest-selling PlayStation 4 game. Horizon Zero Dawn was also the best-selling game on PlayStation Store that month. It was ranked number one in the UK sales chart in April 2017, while hitting eighth place in the Japanese chart. By February 2018, over 7.6 million copies had been sold, increasing to over 10 million a year later, making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games. By February 2022, over 20 million copies sold in PlayStation 4 and Windows platforms.
In an effort to increase profitability, in 2020 Sony decided to begin porting their first-party titles to PC. Horizon Zero Dawn released on PC on August 2020 and had a successful launch, moving over 700,000 digital copies.
In February 2022, Hermen Hulst announced via his Twitter account that the game had sold over 20 million copies as 28 November 2021.
Awards
Sequel
In June 2020, Guerrilla announced a sequel titled Horizon Forbidden West. It was released on February 18, 2022.
Notes
References
External links
2017 video games
Action role-playing video games
Adventure games
Augmented reality in fiction
Decima (game engine) games
Dystopian video games
Family in fiction
Fiction set in the 4th millennium
Genocide in fiction
Guerrilla Games games
Hunting in video games
Interactive Achievement Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
Open-world video games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 4 Pro enhanced games
PlayStation Network games
Post-apocalyptic video games
Science fiction video games
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Video games about artificial intelligence
Video games about cloning
Video games about robots
Video games developed in the Netherlands
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games scored by Joris de Man
Video games set in Arizona
Video games set in Colorado
Video games set in Denver
Video games set in Utah
Video games set in Montana
Video games set in Wyoming
Video games set in Idaho
Video games set in the 31st century
Video games set in the future
Windows games
Horizon Zero Dawn
PlayStation 5 enhanced games |
46999487 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity-based%20conditional%20proxy%20re-encryption | Identity-based conditional proxy re-encryption | Identity-based conditional proxy re-encryption (IBCPRE) is a type of proxy re-encryption (PRE) scheme in the identity-based public key cryptographic setting. An IBCPRE scheme is a natural extension of proxy re-encryption on two aspects. The first aspect is to extend the proxy re-encryption notion to the identity-based public key cryptographic setting. The second aspect is to extend the feature set of proxy re-encryption to support conditional proxy re-encryption. By conditional proxy re-encryption, a proxy can use an IBCPRE scheme to re-encrypt a ciphertext but the ciphertext would only be well-formed for decryption if a condition applied onto the ciphertext together with the re-encryption key is satisfied. This allows fine-grained proxy re-encryption and can be useful for applications such as secure sharing over encrypted cloud data storage.
Introduction
A public-key encryption scheme allows anyone who has the public key of a receiver to encrypt messages to the receiver using the public key in such a way that only the corresponding private key known only to the receiver can decrypt and recover the messages. The public key of a user, therefore, can be published for allowing everyone to use it for encrypting messages to the user while the private key of the user has to be kept secret for the decryption purpose. Both the public key and the corresponding private key of the user are generated by the user in general .
Under the identity-based cryptographic setting, the public key of the user can be an arbitrary string of bits provided that the string can uniquely identify the user in the system. The unique string, for example, can be an email address, a phone number, and a staff ID (if used only internally within an organization). However, the corresponding private key is no longer generated by the user. From the public key, which is a unique binary string, there is a key generation center (KGC), which generates and issues the private key to the user. The KGC has a public key, which is assumed to be publicly known, and the encryption and decryption then work under the unique binary string defined public key and the corresponding private key, respectively, with respect to the KGC’s public key.
Proxy Re-encryption allows a ciphertext, which originally can only be decrypted by a user, to be transformed by a public entity, called proxy, to another ciphertext so that another user can also decrypt. Suppose the two users are Alice and Bob. Alice has some messages: . She intends to encrypt them under her public key, and then upload the encrypted messages to some server.
Now when Alice wants to share these n encrypted messages with Bob, Alice can use a proxy re-encryption scheme to allow the server to re-encrypt these n encrypted messages so that Bob can decrypt these re-encrypted messages directly using his own private key.
To do so in the proxy re-encryption scheme, Alice uses her private key and the public key of Bob to generate a re-encryption key. Alice then sends the re-encryption key to the server. Upon receiving this re-encryption key, the server uses the key to transform all the n encrypted messages to a new form denoted as D1, D2, …, Dn. Bob can then download , decrypt them, and recover the messages using his private key.
In an identity-based conditional proxy re-encryption (IBCPRE) system, users set their public keys as unique identities of the users. One of the main advantages of using identity-based cryptographic algorithms is the elimination of public key certificates which can help enhance the usability of the target security applications. The term ‘Conditional’ in IBCPRE refers to an additional feature, which allows each encrypted message to have a ‘tag’ associated with. In addition to the tag, each re-encryption key also has a ‘tag’ attached. The IBCPRE is designed so that only if the tag of an encrypted message matches with the tag of a re-encryption key can the encrypted message be re-encrypted.
Features
One of the key features of IBCPRE is that when Alice as a data owner encrypts messages, the encryption is done for herself and only Alice herself can decrypt the encrypted messages using her secret key. There is no need for Alice to know in advance about who that she would like to share the encrypted messages with. In other words, picking the friends to share with by Alice can be done after she encrypts the messages and uploads to the Server.
Another feature of IBCPRE is that it supports end-to-end encryption. The server which stores the encrypted messages cannot decrypt the messages both before and after the re-encryption.
IBCPRE supports one-to-many encryption. The data owner Alice can choose multiple friends to share her data with. For multiple friends to share the encrypted messages with, Alice simply needs to generate a re-encryption key for each of her friends and sends all the re-encryption keys to the server for carrying out the re-encryption. The number of re-encryption keys that Alice needs to generate depends on the number of friends that Alice wants to share the encrypted messages with. It does not depend on the number of encrypted messages. One re-encryption key will allow the Server to convert all the encrypted messages provided the tag of the encrypted messages and the tag of the re-encryption key matches.
The conditional ‘tag’ of the IBCPRE facilitates the fine-grained access of encrypted messages. By setting different tag values onto different encrypted messages, the data owner Alice can control the exact set of encrypted messages that she wants to share with any particular friends of her with great flexibility.
Applications
Consider a user Alice who encrypts some messages M1, M2, …, Mt with a tag ‘Private’, Mt+1, Mt+2, …, Mm with a tag ‘toShareWithFamily’, Mm+1, Mm+2, …, Mn with a tag ‘toShareWithFriend’, using IBCPRE under her unique identity, which is considered as the public key of Alice. Alice then uploads the corresponding encrypted messages C1, C2, …, Ct, Ct+1, …, Cm, Cm+1, …, Cn to a server.
When Alice is about to share Mm+1, Mm+2, …, Mn with another user Bob, who becomes her friend recently, Alice generates a re-encryption key using IBCPRE with an associated tag ‘toShareWithFriend’. This generation is done by taking as input Alice’s private key and Bob’s identity. Then Alice sends the re-encryption key to the server. By using the re-encryption key, the server runs the IBCPRE re-encryption function on Cm+1, Cm+2, …, Cn for transforming them into another form, Dm+1, Dm+2, …, Dn so that Bob can decrypt them directly using his private key. This transformation can be done as the tag associated with the encrypted messages, namely ‘toShareWithFriend’, matches with the tag associated with the re-encryption key.
Note that the server cannot transform C1, C2, …, Ct, Ct+1, …, Cm to another form for Bob to decrypt using the re-encryption key because the tag of these m encrypted messages, namely ‘Private’ or 'toShareWithFamily', does not match with the tag of the re-encryption key. Also note that the server cannot retrieve any of the messages at any time.
IBCPRE has been used for secure cloud data sharing and related key management solutions in products of AtCipher Limited.
Schemes and security
A related concept to proxy re-encryption called decrypt right delegation was introduced by Mambo and Okamoto in 1997. Then in 1998, Blaze, Bleumer and Strauss formalized the notion of proxy re-encryption by giving a definition to the set of algorithms of a proxy re-encryption scheme. The authors also proposed a scheme for achieving chosen-plaintext security (CPA-security). Later on, various PRE schemes have been proposed.
In 2007, Green and Ateniese and Ivan and Dodis independently proposed several proxy re-encryption schemes in the identity-based cryptographic setting. This type of scheme is usually called identity-based proxy re-encryption (IBPRE). The schemes are unidirectional, namely, the re-encryption key is for one party to re-encrypt cipher-texts to another party, but not vice versa. A new re-encryption key has to be generated for the other direction of re-encryption. In terms of security, the security analyses of the schemes have been done in the random oracle model. One is CPA-secure, multi-hop and the other is chosen-ciphertext-attack-secure (CCA-secure), single-hop. The schemes, however, are not collusion resistant. This means that if a proxy colludes with the corresponding delegatee, the private key of the delegator will be compromised. CPA-secure IBPRE schemes secure without random oracles were subsequently proposed by Matsuo and Mizuno and Doi.
Type-based PRE and conditional PRE (CPRE) are designed to ensure that the proxy can re-encrypt a ciphertext tagged with a specific condition only if the re-encryption key given by the delegator is tagged with the same condition. Two identity-based CPRE (IBCPRE) schemes were proposed to achieve conditional control in both re-encryption and identity-based re-encryption by Liang et al., and achieved CCA security in the standard model, and the other by Shao et al. and achieved CCA security in the random oracle model.
See also
ID-based encryption
ID-based cryptography
Proxy re-encryption
References
Identity-based cryptography
Public-key cryptography |
47006353 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Strike%20Back%20characters | List of Strike Back characters | Strike Back is a British/American action and military television series, based on a novel of the same name by novelist and former Special Air Service soldier Chris Ryan. The series follows the actions of Section 20, a secretive branch of the British Defence Intelligence service, who operate several high risk, priority missions throughout the globe. The series began broadcasting on Sky1 on 5 May 2010, showing the first six-part series. After a second series was commissioned, it was announced that Cinemax would co-produce the franchise. The first episode of the ten-part second series, under the banner title Project Dawn in the United Kingdom, first aired on Cinemax on 12 August 2011. The ten-part third series, under the title Strike Back: Vengeance, began airing on Cinemax on 17 August 2012. On 3 October 2012, Cinemax and Sky commissioned a fourth series, which was broadcast on Cinemax beginning 9 August 2013. A ten-episode fifth and final season aired in 2015.
The following is a list of characters that have appeared on the television series.
Section 20
Other characters
Chris Ryan's Strike Back
James Middleton (played by Colin Salmon), a civil servant who sits between the British government and the Ministry of Defence, and who oversees Section 20 in the first four episodes.
Katie Dartmouth (played by Orla Brady), a British war correspondent covering the Iraq war. She is kidnapped by the terrorist group the Sword of Islam. During her capture terrorists cut off one of her hands. John Porter succeeds in rescuing her.
Hakim Al Nazeri (played by Dhaffer L'Abidine), the leader of the Sword of Islam responsible for kidnapping Dartmouth. Killed by John Porter.
As'ad (played by Fenar Mohammed Ali), also known as "scarface", a member of the Sword of Islam. Previously, As'ad was thought to be responsible for killing two British soldiers, but in fact witnessed Collinson committing the act. As'ad decides to aid Porter and Dartmouth's escape. However, Collinson refuses As'ad entry into the rescue helicopter, and he is last seen running for his life from other Sword members, and is presumed dead.
Kenneth Bratton (played by David Butler in Chris Ryan's Strike Back, Alistair Petrie in Project Dawn) is an executive of the weapons contractor ATAT. In the beginning of the first series, he is kidnapped in Iraq in 2003, and then rescued. In Project Dawn, it is revealed that Bratton was pressured to plant VX gas in Iraq, but has since kept it in storage in South Africa. He is kidnapped by Daniel Connolly to steal the VX, and is then killed by Donnolly.
Diane Porter (played by Nicola Stephenson) is Porter's wife. The two are separated following Porter's resignation. In episode three she is revealed to be diagnosed with cancer, and in the next episode she dies from complications with the surgery.
Alexandra Porter (played by Laura Greenwood) is Porter's daughter. They become estranged after Porter's resignation. Following her mother's death she lives with Collinson and his wife.
Felix Masuku (played by Shaun Parkes), a former SAS soldier who was ordered to assassinate Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. He is arrested after killing a double. Porter is assigned to break him out of prison and kill him before his trial. Following the escape, Porter spares his life after learning that Masuku was duped to assassinate Mugabe by the British, but in fact a South African diplomat. Masuku, having his roots in Zimbabwe, decides to stay in the country.
Colonel Tshuma (played by David Harewood), the warden of the prison Masuku is being held. Following Porter and Masuku's escape, Tshuma leads a manhunt to find the two. Killed by Porter.
Gerald Baxter (played by Ewen Bremner), a British computer hacker working for the American armed forces. At some point he joins the Taliban to intercepts missiles to kill American soldiers. Porter extracts him, but learns he is suffering from a mental disorder after a tragic event in his past. Killed by the Taliban.
Zahar Sharq (played by Alexander Siddig), an Afghan politician and Baxter's employer. He conspires with the American government to have Baxter killed in exchange for arms and intelligence so he could lead an Afghan insurgent movement.
Frank Arlington (played by Toby Stephens), an American liaison in the UK, conspiring with Sharq as he is deemed fit to lead the insurgence movement in Afghanistan. Through his order, Arlington also wants Baxter and Porter killed (Porter survives).
Project Dawn
Latif (played by Jimi Mistry) is a Pakistani intelligence agent turned terrorist and the main antagonist of Project Dawn. He is the mastermind behind a plot to attack an international summit in Budapest using VX nerve gas stolen from a hidden cache. Latif is motivated by a desire to expose Operation Trojan Horse, a plot to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion which Pakistan was complicit in. By revealing the conspirators, Latif hopes to discredit the West and trigger regime change in Pakistan. He is killed when Eleanor Grant forces him to shoot an explosive charge she is carrying.
Akmal Ramiz (played by Silas Carson) is a Pakistani general who retires to pursue a presidential campaign. Ramiz is held in high esteem by the West for his progressive and pro-democracy stance, but approved of Pakistan's involvement in Operation Trojan Horse and arranged for the capture and execution of John Porter. He is viewed as a liar and a hypocrite by Latif, who attempts to force Ramiz to confess to his role in Trojan Horse. When Ramiz refuses, Latif shoots him.
Daniel Connelly (played by Liam Cunningham) is a former IRA enforcer turned freelance terrorist who is hired by Latif to acquire samples of VX nerve gas from defence contractor ATAT. During his time in Ireland he gained a reputation for brutality, coercing civilians into carrying out attacks, often promising to spare the loved ones of his victims only to kill them. Connelly claims to be carrying on with the fight against Britain, but Scott accuses him of being little more than an anarchist. Connelly lives up to his reputation when kills Kate Marshall despite promising to spare her, prompting Section 20 to track him down and execute him.
Gerald Crawford (played by Iain Glen) is a former Royal Marine who turned to arms smuggling. He is an associate of Latif, which brings him to Section 20's attention. In apprehending him, they inadvertently interfere in his attempt to pay a ransom for his estranged daughter, Claire. He agrees to help Section 20 if they secure her release. Crawford is cynical, viewing human interactions as business transactions. He attempts to re-connect with Claire, only to be rebuffed. He is killed in the cross-fire between Sudanese government troops and local Janjaweed militia.
Clare Somersby (played by Laura Haddock) is a doctor working with an aid organisation in northern Africa and the estranged daughter of Gerard Crawford. She is kidnapped by Janjaweed fighters, prompting Section 20 to launch a rescue attempt to secure her father's co-operation. Her rescue is complicated by her insistence that Stonebridge and Section 20 refrain from violence even when faced with mortal peril. Claire later breaks down under the stress of their situation, admitting that her entire life has been defined by a desire to prove that she is different from her father.
Tahir (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is the chieftain of a group of Janjaweed militants terrorising the Dafur region of Sudan. Under his command, the Janjaweed have raided villagers, murdering and raping civilians on a daily basis. Tahir is seemingly killed several times, surviving gunshots, knife wounds and explosions, leading him to claim that he cannot be killed. He is finally shot by Stonebridge when he is momentarily distracted and dies in a state of disbelief.
Hassani (played by Mel Raido) is an Albanian mobster based in Kosovo who trafficks in drugs, human organs and sexual slavery. He is hired by Latif to take a group of political advisors hostage, giving Latif access to an MI6 agent travelling with them without revealing his presence. Hassani is killed by Latif because he oversteps his instructions and draws the attention of Section 20 to Kosovo while Latif is there.
Dana (played by Annabelle Wallis) is an economic analyst who is kidnapped in Kosovo by Hassani's men. She forms an immediate connection with Scott and takes a leading role amongst the hostages. When the hostages are re-captured, she is to be sold into sexual servitude until she is rescued by Scott. Dana expresses interest in a relationship with him but he rebuffs her as she means something more important to him.
Donoghue is an American captain leading KFOR peacekeeping operations. Initially friendly to Scott and Stonebridge, he is revealed to be corrupt and complicit in Hassani's crimes. He is killed by Scott when Scott raids Hassani's sex trafficking operation; cornered and unarmed, he attempts to negotiate his way out, prompting Scott to shoot him.
Vengeance
Conrad Knox (played by Charles Dance) is the main antagonist of Vengeance. Knox is a billionaire philanthropist running food aid, vaccination and weapons disarmament projects across Africa who believes that the continent has never fully escaped its colonial-era heritage. He recommissions four Apartheid-era nuclear weapons and acquires the trigger devices from a Libyan nuclear scientist. Knox plans to stage a coup in Zimbabwe with the warheads used as a deterrent to force the West into withdrawing its interests from Africa. When his plan is thwarted, he attempts to distribute the warheads to radical groups to fulfil his plan. Section 20 intervene again, prompting Knox to keep the remaining warheads in Johannesburg where he intends to detonate them in the vaults of a colonial-era bank that he believes is a symbol of the corruption at the foundation of modern Africa. He attempts to flee when Scott and Stonebridge disarm the remaining weapons, but as he is a wanted man, he is recognised by members of the public and shoots himself.
Karl Matlock is Knox's right-hand man, tasked with recovering the nuclear triggers when the scientist transporting them attempts to sell them to someone else. Once a soldier, he grew disillusioned after witnessing atrocities committed during a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He joined Knox because he believed in Knox's vision, but quits when the coup fails and Knox plans to detonate the warheads. Matlock is shot and killed by Hanson moments later.
Craig Hanson, a former SAS operative and friend of Stonebridge. His younger brother Jake enlists in the SAS training programme overseen by Stonebridge, but is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and turns on his squadron during a live-fire training exercise. Stonebridge is forced to shoot Jake to save the others, incurring Hanson's wrath. Hanson murders Stonebridge's wife and flees Britain, resurfacing in South Africa where he offers his services to Knox. Stonebridge is nearly consumed with rage upon seeing Hanson and very nearly compromises Section 20's mission. Stonebridge recomposes himself and kills Hanson before disarming the bombs under Johannesburg.
Rebecca Levi (played by Lyne Renée), a Mossad agent sent to South Africa to kill two Apartheid-era nuclear scientists before they can complete the warheads to Knox as Israel had facilitated the South African nuclear programme. She forms a relationship with Scott who recognises the toll her work is taking on her. Rebecca succeed in her mission but forces Scott to shoot her, hoping that he will kill her. Scott refuses, leaving her to be attended to by paramedics. She later appears in Shadow Warfare where she stays with Mossad and goes undercover to investigate links between a terrorist financier and South American drug cartels. She assists Section 20 in extracting their target, but is shot and killed during a firefight.
Christy Bryant (played by Stephanie Vogt) is a CIA agent working in Africa who has a history with Scott; after being dishonourably discharged, Scott worked as a contract killer with Bryant as his handler and lover. Many of her actions in Africa are ostensibly designed to stop terror groups from gaining a foothold, but actually benefit Knox as the CIA sees the merit in his planned coup. When Knox is accused of assassinating a popular Zimbabwean democracy activist and of having nuclear weapons, the CIA cut all ties with him and disavow Bryant. She tries to work with Section 20 to acquire the nuclear warheads and reclaim her standing with the CIA. Although she provides reliable information, Scott refuses to trust her and Bryant is left to fend for herself. She later appears in Legacy when Scott and Stonebridge are being pursued by a CIA assassination team. Bryant betrays them both for money, but is shot and killed by the assassins.
Shadow Warfare
Leo Kamali is a British-Lebanese accountant and financier to al-Zuhari, a notorious and elusive terrorist. Kamali is apprehended by Section 20 in Colombia, but reveals that he is a CIA agent tasked with infiltrating al-Zuhari's network. He aids Section 20 in thwarting al-Zuhari's plans until Section 20 discover that al-Zuhari was killed in an Israeli airstrike and that Kamali has become the de facto leader of the network. His "aid" was actually intended to tie up loose ends and enable him to acquire a weaponised smallpox virus that he plans to release at a NATO air base. The attack is stopped and Kamali detained by his backer Arkady Ulyanov to be handed over to Section 20. Scott and Stonebridge are forced to kill him in front of his daughter when he attempts to release a sample of smallpox.
Ester Kamali is Leo Kamali's daughter. He believes that she is the one good thing he has done in the world and tries to shelter her from it and his true nature. She forms an unexpected bond with Scott that is broken when he is forced to kill her father in front of her.
Miguel Gomez is a Colombian police captain turned cartel leader. He and the other cartels form an alliance with the al-Zuhari network to finance their attacks. When Section 20 attack his estate, he swears revenge and succeeds in killing Rebecca and capturing Scott and Stonebridge. He is killed by Scott when they break free.
James Leatherby (played by Dougray Scott) is a former SAS officer who works for al-Zuhari as a smuggler, courier and enforcer. He was caught by the Republican Guard during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and disavowed by the British government, but escaped and sought revenge. Leatherby is a homosexual with a dominant personality and is prone to homicidal fits of rage. Section 20 exploit this by apprehending his lover and threatening him to interrogate Leatherby. Leatherby commits suicide by shooting his lover, forcing Scott and Stonebridge to turn their weapons on him.
Mairead McKenna is the leader of a Real IRA cell driven out of Ireland. Now based in Budapest, they make a deal with al-Zuhari to attack the British Embassy with an improvised mortar in exchange for accessing a secure NATO network in the building. McKenna resents the British presence in general and Philip Locke in particular, especially after he reveals that her brother Francie was an informant for the British and threatens to tarnish his reputation within the Republican movement. McKenna is killed by Kamali during the attack on the embassy.
Nina Pirogova (played by Tereza Srbova) is a Major in the FSB, the Russian security services. She uses her position to break Scott and Stonebridge out of Black Bear prison and assists in the raid on the Dzehna biological weapons facility. Pirogova returns in Legacy to extract Scott and Stonebridge from North Korea and to help track rogue North Korean agents in Vienna before leaving the team for good—with a warning that if they need help in the future, they should ask someone else—after their operation sees one of her friends killed.
Arkady Ulyanov is a powerful Russian mobster with ties to the security services and influence over federal politics. He sends his son Viktor to a meeting with Kamali and the Colombian cartels, but swears revenge on Section 20 after Viktor is killed in a raid. He operates the private Black Bear prison in Moscow, providing prisoners to al-Zuhari as test subjects for experimentation with a weaponised smallpox virus. When Section 20 prevent Kamali from carrying out the attack, Locke persuades Ulyanov to surrender Kamali to Section 20 in exchange for Scott and Stonebridge. Ulyanov agrees, but is killed by Section 20 when Kamali attempts to release the smallpox virus.
Legacy
Mei Foster (played by Michelle Yeoh) is the wife of Robin Foster, the British Ambassador to Thailand, and the major antagonist of Legacy. She is revealed to be Li-Na, a sleeper agent working for North Korea's Office 39, and had been trained for her mission since childhood. Mei uses her position to secure vital components for North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and to orchestrate the assassination of a North Korean general by her husband to further divide North Korea and the West. Although Mei succeeds in her mission, she becomes increasingly frustrated by North Korean politicians who refuse to act on her knowledge of Section 20. When Scott and Stonebridge sabotage the missile programme and escape from her custody, Mei is held responsible and her execution ordered. She escapes with the help of her lover, Kwon, and turns rogue, planning to detonate an improvised nuclear weapon at a United Nations conference in Geneva. Scott and Stonebridge intervene and take her into custody but she is summarily executed by a CIA kill team during her prisoner transfer. Her final words are a warning to Scott and Stonebridge, allowing them to escape the same fate.
Kwon (played by Will Yun Lee) is a childhood friend and later lover of Mei. Like Mei, he was trained from childhood to become a sleeper agent and thus they represent the only genuine relationship the two have ever had. Kwon's career takes him into politics and he is assigned to be Mei's "liaison" upon her return to Korea; in reality, he is to spy on her. Mei repeatedly advises him to report that she is corrupt as a way of avoiding retribution when she is found responsible for the failure of the missile programme. However, Kwon kills a senior officer to aid her escape and the two turn rogue. He is killed when Scott and Stonebridge storm the UN conference.
Finn is Scott's teenage son who Scott meets for the first time in Bangkok. After getting in trouble with his step-father, Finn runs to Bangkok where he initially believes Scott works as an IT consultant. The two are forced to go on the run when the Yakuza attack Section 20. The two start to bond before Scott is called upon to infiltrate North Korea. Although they part ways, Mei organises his abduction and uses him to capture Scott and Stonebridge, and then to confess that their actions in North Korea were a deliberate act of war. The three escape, but Finn is shot in the process. After recovering in a Russian hospital, he is escorted home by Martinez. He is later seen going on a road trip to Las Vegas with Scott and Stonebridge.
Robin Foster (played by Tim McInnerny) is the British ambassador to Thailand and the husband of Mei Foster. He has dedicated his career to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Foster succeeds in getting the North Koreans to agree to a summit in Bangkok, but his plans are jeopardised when his daughter Chloe is kidnapped. He contacts Phillip Locke to have Section 20 discreetly handle the situation, but surrenders to the kidnappers' demands when the rescue attempt fails. The kidnappers use Foster to deliver a bomb to the North Korean delegation, which kills a general. Foster is critically injured in the blast and is later murdered by Mei in his hospital bed.
Ray McQueen is a British gangster based in Bangkok who kidnaps Chloe Foster. He is a local gun-for-hire employed by the Yakuza to conceal their role in the crime. Section 20 track him down after the embassy bombing and persuade him to assist them by protecting his wife and unborn child. McQueen is killed when the Yakuza send corrupt Bangkok police to attack Section 20's headquarters.
Shiro, the son of a senior Yakuza crime lord who oversees operations in South-East Asia. He supplies Mei with materials for the missile programme in exchange for shipments of methamphetamines. Mei maniputes him into killing his father to assume control of the entire Yakuza operation and uses them to attack Section 20. Mei later abandons him when he is seriously injured; realising her betrayal, Shiro prepares to aid Philip Locke, but is shot by a CIA kill team.
Christopher Desmond (played by Michael McElhatton) is a freelance bomb-maker. Known by his alias Oppenheimer, he works for the highest bidder whether they are terrorist groups or governments. Desmond shows no remorse for his crimes, claiming he simply builds the bombs for his clients. He is enlisted by Mei to build an improvised nuclear device until he is tracked down by Locke. Locke accuses Desmond of building the bomb that killed his son Anthony, but Desmond refuses to accept responsibility and instead claims that Locke himself was the target and that Desmond was hired by the British government. Desmond denies knowing why Locke was targeted, but it is strongly implied that his death would fulfil a political objective. When Desmond refuses to divulge the location of the bomb he built for Mei, Locke executes him.
Charles Ridley (played by James Wilby) is a bureaucrat working for an anonymous government department and Locke's commanding officer. He openly questions the value of intelligence gathered by Section 20 and even goes so far as to disband them when Locke disobeys orders. Ridley arranges for Mei and Section 20 to be killed because it is politically convenient for Mei's attack in Geneva to be covered up. Stonebridge and Scott ultimately survive and Stonebridge visits Ridley to remind him of the human cost to his decisions and threatens his life if anyone comes after him. The events of Retribution strongly imply that Ridley was assassinated and that Stonebridge was held responsible.
Faber and Mason are members of a private military contractor working as a CIA-sanctioned assassination team. They function as bounty hunters, given greater rewards for quicker kills. They pose as smugglers to get close to their target, Shiro, before Section 20 inadvertently intervene. Mason and Faber join forces to thwart the transfer of missile components, but turn on Section 20 as soon as they get a chance to kill Shiro. They later lead the ambush on Section 20, killing Mei and leading the hunt for Scott and Stonebridge, going so far as to torture civilians for information. When Scott and Stonebridge are cornered in a barn, Faber offers them the chance to buy their freedom. He expresses disbelief that they are not as corrupt as he is before Stonebridge kills him. Mason is killed in the subsequent assault on the barn.
Retribution
Will Jensen (played by Phil Dunster), an intelligence analyst working for Section 20. He is eager to get experience working in the field and resents being called "Computer Guy" by the rest of the team. Jensen gradually gets more field experience but comes into conflict with the other team members who feel that he is "playing soldier" and unable to handle the demands of fieldwork. He is captured and tortured by Jane Lowry, losing an eye in the process. Although he returns to work, he is murdered by Donovan when he discovers her involvement with Lowry. A running gag sees Wyatt unable to pronounce his name, referring to him as "Johnson".
Omair Idrisi (played by Don Hany), a terrorist who established himself in Libya after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. He was captured in Syria, but after his men infiltrated the army unit escorting him, he is considered so dangerous that British military intelligence re-activated Section 20 to apprehend him. He was radicalised after his father was killed in an airstrike that misidentified its target. Idrisi purchases Stinger missiles from an American arms dealer and plans to unify the factions fighting in Libya to attack Western interests. He is seemingly killed in an airstrike when Section 20 raid his mountainside bunker but is subsequently revealed to have survived and is incarcerated in a secret prison in Poland. Following his escape, he reunites with his wife Jane Lowry and attempts to recover a register of all British military intelligence operations and release it to the Russians.
Jane Lowry (played by Katherine Kelly), Idrisi's wife and the major antagonist of Retribution. Originally a prostitute, she was radicalized after spending time in a British prison and assumes control over her husband's men when he is captured in Syria. Lowry is the mastermind behind his escape and encourages him to advance his plans and continues to supply terrorist groups with material support after his death. She abducts a Russian biochemist and forces him to develop a lethal nerve agent as part of her plans and plans to infiltrate a notorious secret prison and ultimately expose "Project Tenebrae", a disavowed intelligence operation that she was a part of with Adeena Donovan. As part of Project Tenebrae, Lowry planned to infiltrate her later-husband's terrorist group with the knowledge and support of British intelligence, but betrayed them after she was radicalized by Idrisi and attacked a civilian target, killing an American diplomat. She created "the Atlas", a dossier compiling active intelligence operations, which she plans to release, compromising British and American relations. Lowry is shot and killed by MacAllister shortly after being reunited with her husband.
Morgan Ives (played by Trevor Eve), an American arms dealer with a reputation for selling anything to anyone and a crass, bigoted outlook on humanity. He supplies armed forces, private military contractors and terrorist cells alike. Ives manipulates all three for his own profit. His helicopter is shot down after he sells a consignment of Stinger missiles to Idrisi, and forces Section 20 to escort him to safety in exchange for what he knows. Section 20 abandon him in a Bedouin military camp. Ives is implied to have been killed by the Bedouins, but he survives and discreetly follows Section 20. He captures them when they have Idrisi in their custody and after attempting to kill them, he tries to use Idrisi to force Lowry to lead him to the Atlas, which he intends to sell to the highest bidder. He is overpowered by Idrisi's Russian collaborators, who execute him after telling a bigoted joke about Russians.
Rosa Varga, Jozef Varga's sister and the leader of Magyar Ultra, a white nationalist street gang based in Budapest. Under Rosa's leadership, the group transformed itself from a loose collection of thugs to a citywide criminal enterprise. She shows no particular dedication to Magyar Ultra's violent ideology and instead seeks enough money to escape her criminal life. Rosa is contacted by Jane Lowry to locate a biochemist named Markov, believing that Lowry can pay her enough to start a new life. She is killed by her brother when she betrays him by freeing Markov.
Josef Varga, Rosa Varga's brother and recruiter for Magyar Ultra. He was once a soldier serving in the NATO coalition in Afghanistan before being dishonourably discharged for a racially charged assault. Like Rosa, he is looking to escape his criminal life, but he is often temperamental and impulsive. Josef is killed in a shoot-out with Section 20.
Kamil Markov, a fugitive Russian biochemist. Once a pivotal figure in the Russian chemical weapons programme, he was forced into hiding after exposing researchers to Novichok, a potent nerve gas, as revenge for his being fired. Now living in Budapest, he is forcibly recruited by Jane Lowry to continue his work. He is killed in the crossfire between the FSB and Section 20 when Section 20 raid his lab in Pripyat.
Milos Borisovich (played by Peter Firth), the heir to a Belorussian crime syndicate. He is greatly concerned with his family's honour but fears that his son is too weak to take over the business. Borisovich loans his methamphetamine labs to Lowry, allowing her to start producing Novichok. Section 20 infiltrate his villa during his mother's funeral, inadvertently incurring his wrath when Wyatt and MacAllister hijack the hearse with her body inside and use it as a getaway vehicle. After Section 20 repeatedly destroy his production facilities, he makes a deal with Lowry allowing him to hand Markov over to the FSB to collect the bounty on his head. He is killed when Lowry betrays him and exposes him to Novichok.
Yuri Shevchenko, a semi-retired hitman working for Borisovich. He tracks Section 20 across Belarus and the Ukraine, repeatedly trying to kill them. His preferred weapon of choice is a garrotte or manual strangulation. After successfully ambushing Wyatt, he is overpowered by MacAllister and the two hang him in the ensuing fight.
Volkan, Omair Idrisi's lieutenant in Europe. He assumes de facto control of Idrisi's operations after his apparent death and Lowry's disappearance. He underestimates the loyalty of his men to Idrisi and Lowry, who begins to suspect that he is disloyal but offers him the chance to recommit to her cause.
Rachel Sheridan, a former CIA officer who joined German-American private military contractor Octagon. She designs high-security black site prisons for the extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects where they can be detained and questioned without civilian oversight or being bound by the Geneva Convention. Sheridan is unapologetic, claiming that she is perfectly justified in her actions and willing to sacrifice her loved ones in the name of national security.
Colonel Parker, Wyatt's commanding officer prior to his joining Section 20. Ostensibly part of the Joint Special Operations Command, he is running an illegal rendition programme, detaining and torturing terrorism suspects.
Arkady Krupkin and Katya, a pair of Russian GRU operatives who lead a team similar to Section 20. They support Idrisi in the search for the Atlas and lead the defence of a Russian military intelligence bunker that Section 20 attack in retaliation. Katya is knocked out after surrendering to Reynolds, claiming that she was only ever doing her job; Krupkin forces Wyatt to kill him instead of deactivating an explosive charge in the bunker.
Revolution
Pavel Kuragin is a Russian military intelligence officer who acts as a liaison between Moscow and Alpha Group units in the field. He is Zarkova's handler, although she largely keeps him in the dark about her activities. He is later revealed to be an agent of Kingfisher. Kuragin is responsible for the theft of a Russian nuclear weapon and deals through a complex network of cut-outs and shell companies to conceal his identity. He is disavowed by the Russian government following the failure of Project Kingfisher and turns rogue, stealing the keys to a chemical weapons facility in Azerbaijan. He forces Zarkova and Novin to kill him rather than tell them the override code. The name Pavel Kuragin is an alias, though he claims his birth name is unimportant. Zarkova identifies him as Denis Brusilov, who was recruited by the army as a young man after spending years in foster care. His superiors exploited his need for acceptance and his need to be made to feel special, turning him into Kuragin. It is implied that he was present when Section 20 raided a GRU server farm in Retribution.
Operations Directorate 338 is the name given to a clandestine branch of the Russian intelligence community. The Directorate is made up of nationalist and ultra-nationalist sympathisers in the military, intelligence and diplomatic corps. They believe that Russia has been humiliated by the West following the imposition of economic sanctions that wiped $600 billion from the Russian economy and pushed twenty percent of the population below the poverty line. They devised Project Kingfisher as a way of restoring Russia's dignity. They arrange for a Russian warhead to be stolen and rebuilt as portable suitcase bombs to conceal their origin. These are then given to terrorist groups who are apprehended by military units and used as evidence to support a coup, installing a puppet government friendly to Russia. When Project Kingfisher—and a series of related operations—is shut down, Operations Directorate 338 support its agents by giving them the means to fire missiles armed with VX nerve gas on Western cities to force a war between Russia and the West.
Laoshu (played by Tom Wu) is an enforcer for a Triad based in Kuala Lumpur. He disappeared for eight years after the "Night of Blood" in which he single-handedly killed every member of a rival gang and has since become the stuff of urban legend. His reputation precedes him as he is able to kill most of an Alpha Group unit in minutes, overpower McAllister and evade police. Laoshu is revealed to be the biological father of police captain Amy Leong, and that the "Night of Blood" was revenge for a targeted hit that killed his wife. He is later killed by Novin after a fistfight.
James McKitterick is the British High Commissioner to Malaysia. Coltrane and Section 20 report directly to him, but begin to suspect he is deliberately hindering them after the Triads are tipped off to a raid. They learn that McKitterick owes gambling debts to the Triads. The Triads force him to authorise passage of a truck carrying a nuclear weapon out of Kuala Lumpur. Section 20 try to extract him and have him rescind the order, but believing the Triads will kill his family, McKitterick commits suicide.
Gopan is a self-taught nuclear physicist and the leader of a Hindu nationalist terror cell. He is initially introduced as the right-hand man of Anjali Vartak, but has misled her and used her to finance his plot. Gopan takes possession of the nuclear warhead and convert it into two dirty bombs for Kingfisher before passing them on to Kingfisher's next cut-out. While his men are well-funded, they are under-equipped and poorly trained; nevertheless, they represent a different kind of threat as they are a danger to everyone around them. Gopan is killed by Zarkova as he tries to escort the bombs out of Goa.
Anjali Vartak is an Indian textile magnate, aspiring politician and privately a radical Hindu nationalist. She blames Muslim extremists for the death of her infant son and plots revenge, planning to detonate radiological devices to irradiate mosques throughout Goa. However, Gopan believes that her privileged life means her anger will be short-lived and instead encourages her to pursue a career in politics to legitimise their cause. When her ties to the terrorist group are revealed, Anjali plans a suicide mission. She is killed when Wyatt tackles her out of the window of a fourth-story in an effort to wrestle her bomb away.
Jean-Baptiste Zaza is a drug lord producing methamphetamines in Myanmar. Fleeing his native Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, he found himself in South-West Asia and rose quickly through the ranks of the gangs. Zaza styles himself as a liberator, funding schools and hospitals with drug money, but in reality he is deeply paranoid and prone to jealous rages that quickly turn violent. He intercepts Kingfisher's courier transporting the dirty bombs and attempts to sell them to al-Shabaab militants. Section 20 attempt to intercept the buyer and locate the bombs, but lose the intelligence. Zaza is killed in an explosion when Section 20 raid his compound and secure the bombs.
Lauren Gillespie is a DEA agent stationed in Myanmar and an acquaintance of Alexander Coltrane. It is implied that she was exiled to a remote province as punishment for her renegade tactics. She likens Myanmar to the Wild West and is quite happy to use murder and extortion to achieve her objectives. Gillespie is mostly interested in keeping the drug gangs of Myanmar in a state of détente and is happy to let the stolen dirty bombs fall into terrorist hands to maintain that state. She uses DEA slush funds to illegally finance Zaza's rise to power, hoping to earn the favour of her superiors, but Zaza is aware of her plotting and instead controls her. Gillespie is mortally wounded during the raid on Zaza's compound.
Madison Wyatt is Wyatt's wife. While married, they live separately. When she serves him with divorce papers and he is shot by Kuragin, Wyatt reconsiders their relationship and attempts to make amends. Unable to adjust to civilian life, he lies to her and returns to the field but ultimately feels guilt when Kuragin sends assassins after her.
Hassan Ahmad is the former leader of a jihadist terror network until he was imprisoned. He was released as part of a deradicalisation programme and has largely been forgotten by the world until Kuragin offers him a chance at notoriety. He attempts to detonate one of Kugarin's bombs in Jakata, only to find that it is rigged to be inoperable. Section 20 attempt to apprehend him as proof of Kugarin's plot, but he is shot before he can be taken into custody.
Colonel Aldo is the leader of Squad Komodo, an elite Indonesian counter-terrorist unit. Squad Komodo was disbanded after it resorted to kidnappings and extrajudicial killings, becoming little more than a death squad. Most of the unit was court-martialled and stripped of their ranks, but Aldo was allowed to keep his position as a political show of good faith. He uses Kugarin's support to reform Squad Komodo as a mercenary unit with access to cutting-edge weapons and equipment. Under Kugarin's plan, Aldo would lead a military coup in Indonesia, becoming a puppet of the Russian government. He is apprehended after Section 20 kill the Squad Komodo members; Wyatt empathises with his frustration at a government ambivalent to the safety of its own people, convincing Aldo to lower his weapon.
Natasha Petchrenko is a former SVR operative who was disavowed and her death staged by the Russian government to free up her ability to carry out covert operations. She goes rogue and joins Kuragin after Project Kingfisher—and several other, similar operations—is shut down. Petchrenko brokers a deal with American tech entrepreneur Caleb Montgomery to acquire a weaponised computer virus capable of breaching Russian military encryption, which they then use to bring down a defunct satellite carrying missile launch keys. She is killed when she is exposed to VX nerve gas during Section 20's raid on the missile silo.
Artem Orlov is a former Russian marine who, like Petchrenko, was disavowed and his death staged by the Russian government to free up his ability to carry out covert operations. He goes rogue after Project Kingfisher is shut down, justifying his actions as patriotism. However, he has trouble with Kuragin's willingness to kill indiscriminately, especially when it means killing Russians. He is killed when Kuragin uses him as a human shield.
Chief of General Staff Pokrovsky is the liaision between Section 20 and the Russian Armed Forces and Zarkova's commanding officers. He oversees the interrogation and recruitment of Coltrane and Section 20, but grows to resent Russia's dependence on the West to thwart Kuragin and comes to sympathise with him. Pokrovsky interferes with Section 20's investigation by informing Kuragin of their activities and attempts to have Zarkova court martialled when she deduces that someone in the chain of command is working with Kuragin. He is killed after his interrogation by Section 20 when he draws a weapon on Coltrane.
Vendetta
Zayef Hidjari is the main antagonist of Vendetta. The brothers are Bosnian Muslims whose parents were killed in a massacre during the Balkan War. They became radicalised and formed a splinter group of Islamic State. They are well-organised and well-funded, but largely unknown to Western intelligence agencies. Zayef grows increasingly unstable and paranoid, killing his men on the mere suspicion of disloyalty. He plans an attack on a NATO security conference in Münich, followed by waves of attacks across Europe. Section 20 catch him as he attempts to smuggle a shipment of weapons out of Albania and he provides them with evidence of a conspiracy between intelligence agencies. He dies when he goads Coltrane into summarily executing him.
Mahir Hidjari is Zayef's older brother and responsible for planning the brothers' attacks. He claims loyalty to Zayef, but is disgusted by him and working for British intelligence. Mahir is to oversee a false flag operation that would see Zayef stage an unsuccessful attack on Münich and then get caught shipping arms to terror cells across Europe. This wouls give the West an excuse to deploy soldiers in Eastern Europe. However, Zayef learns of Mahir's treachery and straps him into a suicide vest in Münich, killing him and leaving Zayef free to carry out his plan without Mahir controlling him.
Dr. Helen McCluskey is a British biochemist stationed in Pristina, Kosovo. She is working on a covert program to weaponise a strain on the Marbug virus that was started and later abandoned by Serbia during the Balkan War. She is captured by the Demarchi crime family and forced to reveal the virus' location. Section 20 is deployed to rescue her, but Coltrane is given a secret order to execute her to prevent her from becoming a whistleblower.
Edon Demachi is the patriarch of an Italian-Albanian crime family in Kosovo. He is the mastermind behind the theft of a weaponised strain of the Marbug virus. His family is quite small within the Albanian mafia as his father disgraced their name in a feud with the Italian Vironi family. Edon hopes that he can reconcile with the Veronis by having his son Loric marry the Veronis' heir. He is killed in a shoot-out with McAllister.
Arianna Demachi (born Elena Stanikova) is Edon Demachi's wife. She is more compassionate towards her son than Edon is, but is equally ruthless. She swears a blood feud against Section 20 after her husband's death. Arianna takes control of the Albanian mafia and is revealed to be a Russian deep-cover agent tasked with seizing control of organised crime in the former Yugoslavia. Her family's dealings with Zayef reveal Britain and America's role in his plot, and she tries to secure a hard drive with evidence on it for use against the West. Although she fails when the drive is erased, the GRU decide to invest $250 million to continue her takeover of organised crime in Eastern Europe, allowing them to destabilise Europe by controlling the flow of drugs and guns in major cities. Realising that Section 20 will never stop hunting her, Arianna steals the $250 million and starts a new life in Mexico. Section 20 nevertheless track her down and Coltrane executes her.
Loric Demachi is the son of Edon and Adrianna. He is to be married to the daughter of a rival family, but is a closeted homosexual. He resents his father and agrees to help Section 20 if they kill him. However, he later regrets his actions and joins Arianna in swearing a blood feud. He and his mother take control in of the Albanian mafia in a bloody coup and Loric admits to Zayef that he betrayed his father to Section 20. Arianna uses this to remove him from power and ends up stabbing him to death when he resists.
Yoni Spiegel is an Israeli patrol officer who is caught up in a gun battle involving Section 20. He is self-conscious as his colleagues do not take him seriously, and jumps at the chance to help McAllister. McAllister tries to enlist him as a local source, but Spiegel takes things too far when he tries to arrest Zayef and Mahir, leading to a shoot-out in a bus terminal. He is killed when Zayef's men storm his police precinct.
Nadav Topal is a Palestinian taxi driver working in Tel Aviv. He attempts to sell a Russian military-grade cyberweapom that he steals from a treasonous Russian officer. He is killed by Spiegel when he resists arrest.
Danny Dahar is a drug runner and friend of Topal. He kidnaps and tortures Novin for the cyberweapon Imperiya and is able to capture most of Section 20 when they attempt a rescue. He is killed by Coltrane.
Yana Haim is an Israeli gangster-turned-property developer. Topal turns to him to try and sell Imperiya, but Haim tries to double-cross him. Topal kills him in self-defence when Danny and his men attack Haim's villa.
Sir James Spencer is the head of MI6 and the creator of Section 20. He has a father-son relationship with Coltrane, which he tries to use to influence Section 20's operations; Coltrane sees through this, but still views Spencer as a mentor. Spencer is the architect of the plan to use Zayef and tries to reason with Coltrane when Section 20 uncover the conspiracy. He is mortally wounded when the CIA betray him and dies when he sets off a grenade, killing several assassins in the process.
Carolyn Fortier is a senior CIA officer and Spencer's partner in the plan to use Zayef. She sees his belief in Coltrane as a weakness and has no problem sending a hit squad to kill them when Spencer tries to reason with Coltrane. She later recruits Section 20 to help find Chetri before the Russians do, but discreetly authorises Wyatt to kill her if necessary. She is killed when a bomb planted by a Russian sleeper agent is set off.
Sevastian Levkin is Arianna's handler in the GRU. He has little field experience and tries to take over her interrogation of Chetri, ostensibly to protect her if it goes poorly, but she rebuffs him. He is later transferred to managing a casino in Armenia and launder Arianna's money, which he sees as a demotion. He is killed by Novin for his role in Chetri's death.
References
Lists of American television series characters
Lists of British television series characters
Lists of action television characters
Lists of drama television characters
C |
47018111 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectra%20AI | Vectra AI | Vectra AI, Inc. applies artificial intelligence that detects and responds to hidden cyberattackers inside cloud, data center and enterprise networks.
The company’s Cognito platform is designed to detect cyberattacker behaviors in these infrastructures and allow security analysts to conduct incident investigations and hunt for hidden threats using security-enriched metadata.
To augment the Cognito platform, Vectra threat researchers identify and investigate cyberattacks, vulnerabilities and malicious behaviors that are unknown to the world. With data sets from this research, data scientists develop the machine learning algorithms and behavioral analysis that drive the Cognito platform.
Investors in Vectra include Khosla Ventures, TCV, Accel Partners, IA Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, DAG Ventures, Wipro Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Nissho Electronics, and Silver Lake.
History
Vectra was founded in 2010 as TraceVector LLC in New York City and was incorporated in 2012 under the name Vectra Networks. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with facilities in Austin, Texas, Boston, Mass., Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom and France.
Vectra’s team includes threat researchers, white hats, data scientists, security engineers, and user interface designers.
Key executives are Hitesh Sheth, president and chief executive officer; Jennifer Geisler, chief marketing officer; Oliver Tavakoli, chief technology officer; Howie Shohet, chief financial officer; Jodi Sutton, vice president of business operations;Kevin Kennedy, vice president of product management; Jason Kehl, vice president of engineering; Aaron Bean, vice president of human resources; and Marc Gemassmer, chief revenue officer
Board members include Hitesh Sheth, president and CEO of Vectra; Bruce Armstrong, operating partner, Kholsa Ventures; Kevin Dillon, co-founder and managing partner of Atlantic Bridge; Charles Giancarlo, CEO of Pure Storage; Brad Gillespie, general partner at IA Ventures; Tim McAdam, general partner TCV; Jim Messina, founder and CEO of the Messina Group; and Eric Wolford, venture partner at Accel Partners.
Products
The Cognito platform from Vectra provides continuous, automated threat surveillance to expose hidden and unknown cyberattackers that actively spread inside networks.
Cognito analyzes network traffic in private data centers, public clouds and enterprise environments to detect hidden cyberattacker behaviors. The Cognito platform identifies and prioritizes all threat detections based on severity and certainty scores, which empowers IT security teams to prevent data loss by quickly mitigating the most serious attacks first.
Threat behaviors and cyberattack techniques detected by Cognito include botnet command-and-control communications, botnet monetization, internal reconnaissance, lateral movement, and data theft, or exfiltration.
Vectra offers three applications on the Cognito platform to address use cases:
Cognito Stream delivers enterprise-scale network metadata enriched with security insights in Zeek format to data lakes and security information and event management (SIEM) applications without the complexity, constant tuning and scale limitation of open-source Zeek.
Cognito Recall gives security analysts a logical starting point to perform AI-assisted threat hunting and conclusive incident investigations.
Cognito Detect automates the real-time detection of hidden attackers in cloud and data center workloads and user and internet-of-things devices.
Using AI for incident detection and triage in its security operations center has helped one Vectra customer – Texas A&M University System – resolve an incident in 10 to 20 minutes, rather than hours or days.
Technology
Vectra AI combines data science, machine learning and network behavioral analysis technologies to identify patterns that characterize malicious behavior within a network.
Cognito uses artificial intelligence, including supervised learning, unsupervised machine learning, and deep learning techniques, to detect and respond to advanced cyberattacks. Remediation actions are taken with security information and event management (SIEMs), firewalls, endpoint security enforcement, network access control, and orchestration, which are integrated with Cognito via an application programming interface.
Vectra was issued ten U.S. patents for advanced cyber security analytics capabilities automated by AI:
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Attacker Behavior Industry Reports
Vectra publishes Attacker Behavior Industry Reports, which provide an analysis of active and persistent attacker behaviors inside the enterprise networks of Vectra customers. The reports examine a wide range of cyberattack detections and trends from 300+ Vectra customers from nine different industries. The reports span all strategic phases of the attack lifecycle.
"90% of organisations deploying Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exhibited RDP attacker behaviour."
"The most significant ransomware threat — in which hackers steal your data and hold it for ransom — is malicious encryption of shared network files in cloud service providers."
"Attackers are actively infiltrating energy organizations and utilities for reconnaissance purposes.”
"Sixty percent of cryptomining detections in a Vectra study occurred on higher-education networks."
"Sophisticated cyber-attackers are using hidden tunnels to spy on financial firms and pilfer sensitive data and personally-identifiable information (PII) - and they're doing it at a higher rate than in other industries."
Awards and Honors
Vectra and its customers have received industry recognition, including:
2020 Cyber Defense Magazine Infosec Awards - Next Gen Category for "Cloud Security" and "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning"
2019 Deloitte 2019 Technology Fast 500 winners
2019 computing Security Excellence Awards: Enterprise Threat Detection (Finalist) and Most Innovative AI/ML Security Solution (Finalist)
2019 The Hot 150 Cybersecurity Companies
2019 Stratus Awards for Cloud Computing
2019 SC Awards Europe: Highly Commented for Best Use of Machine Learning, Best Behavior Analytics and Enterprise Threat Detection
2019 American Business Association Stevie Awards: Best Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Solution
2019 The Software Report: Top 25 Women Leaders in Cybersecurity
2019 Red Herring Top 100 Global Winner
2019 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards: Vectra Cognito Platform and Chief Technology Officer Oliver Tavakoli
2019 CRN Security 100
2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems
References
Companies based in San Jose, California
American companies established in 2012
Computer security companies
Networking companies of the United States
Artificial intelligence |
47023917 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minds | Minds | Minds is an alt-tech blockchain-based social network. Users can earn money or cryptocurrency for using Minds, and tokens can be used to boost their posts or crowdfund other users. Minds has been described as more privacy-focused than mainstream social media networks. Writers in The New York Times, Engadget, and Vice have noted the volume of far-right users and content on the platform. Minds describes itself as focused on free speech, and minimally moderates the content on its platform. Its founders have said that they do not remove extremist content from the site out of a desire to deradicalize those who post it through civil discourse.
History
Minds was co-founded in 2011 by Bill Ottman and John Ottman as an alternative to social networks such as Facebook, which the founders believed abused their users via "spying, data mining, algorithm manipulation, and no revenue sharing". Other cofounders were Mark Harding, Ian Crossland, and Jack Ottman. Minds launched to the public in June 2015.
A Facebook page affiliated with the hacktivist group Anonymous encouraged its followers to support Minds in 2015, and called for developers to contribute to the service's open source codebase.
In 2018, over 150,000 Vietnamese users joined Minds after fearing that Facebook would comply with a new law requiring them to remove political dissent and release user data to the Vietnamese government. Beginning in May 2020, over 250,000 Thai users joined Minds after growing concerns about privacy on Twitter, which had been widely used for political activism. This led Minds to add Thai language support to its mobile apps, and upgrade its servers to handle the influx of traffic.
In October 2019, United States President Donald Trump invited Minds to a social media summit hosted at the White House. In January 2021, after YouTube and Facebook removed tens of thousands of Trump supporters and alleged white supremacists from their platforms in the wake of the 2021 United States Capitol attack earlier that month, Minds was among the alternative apps those users adopted.
Service
Minds is a website as well as a desktop and mobile app. The platform awards Ethereum ERC20 cryptocurrency tokens to its users based on their engagement with the site, and users spend tokens to promote their content or to crowdfund other users through monthly subscriptions. The tokens can also be bought and redeemed for standard currency. Minds offers a monthly premium subscription that gives users access to exclusive content, the ability to become verified, and the ability to remove boosted posts from their feed.
Posts on Minds appear in reverse chronological order, unlike many mainstream platforms that use more complex and often secret ranking algorithms to determine which posts appear.
Minds has been described as an alt-tech platform, alongside other services including Parler, Gab, BitChute, and MeWe.
Privacy and security
Minds has been described as more privacy-focused than its competitors. All messages sent between users are end-to-end encrypted, meaning even those who work for the company can't read their contents. Minds is also open source, so its codebase can be freely audited for vulnerabilities or other privacy concerns. Users can optionally register anonymously.
In 2015 an application security consultant posted to the Full Disclosure mailing list to say that the Minds client was accepting encryption keys without any identity verification, and that Minds was using its own weak cryptography protocol. Earlier the same week, a security company had released a full disclosure report claiming they had found that it was possible for them to delete any message, edit any user's profile, and upload arbitrary files to Minds. Mark Harding, Minds' CTO, denied the claims made on the mailing list. A security researcher at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute agreed that the encryption used by Minds was weak, saying that although it wasn't necessarily exploitable, "I am not optimistic that they got it right". Bill Ottman, Minds' CEO, acknowledged the issues reported in the security company's full disclosure and said that the company had addressed them.
Content
In a 2018 interview with TechCrunch, founder and CEO Bill Ottman said that Mind's mission was "Internet freedom with privacy, transparency, free speech within the law and user control". Minds' terms of service disallows doxing, inciting violence, posting terroristic content, and harassing other users directly. Minds has been described as less rigorous about removing objectionable content than more mainstream social networks. A 2018 Wired article noted that hate speech was not disallowed, and reported that "The vast majority of content on Minds is innocuous, but posts do appear there that would constitute hate speech on other platforms".
Following a February 2018 appearance by Ottman on the Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight, Media Matters for America described Minds as "full of bigotry" and described the site's content as racist, antisemitic, and misogynist. Also in 2018, a writer for Engadget wrote about his concerns with the site's commitment to protecting free speech: "It's not until you survey the most popular channels on the platform that you start wondering what sort of free speech and debate Minds is interested in protecting. The site's stars are largely the intellectual bantamweights of the far-right movement, and the debate seems very one-sided. If you're wondering where people with Pepe the Frog avatars have migrated to, it's here. In fact, the general tenor of Minds is a combination of race hate, gun porn, 'pro-white erotica' and lots and lots of weed". Vice criticized Minds in 2019 as a "haven" for neo-Nazis and far-right groups and individuals. In response to the 2019 allegations, the site banned several neo-Nazis and people belonging to other hate groups. Nathaniel Popper wrote for The New York Times in 2021 that Minds "became an online home to some of the right-wing personalities and neo-Nazis who were booted from mainstream social networks, along with fringe groups, in other countries, that have been targeted by their governments".
Moderation
In 2018, Minds had a small team that was responsible for policing content on the site, and was not using artificial intelligence to try to detect content that violated the site's terms of service. In May 2019, Wired wrote that Minds' moderation team was "about five" people, and that the company was in the process of forming a "jury system" that would remove content based on votes from its users. In August 2019, Ottman said to NPR that they had recently rolled out the jury system, which allows users who feel moderation of their content has been unfair to appeal to a randomly-selected twelve-person jury made up of other users.
Deradicalization
Ottman has said that he opposes removing hate speech and other objectionable content from Minds because he believes it can draw more attention to it, and that he opposes deplatforming extremists because he believes it only serves to push people towards more "other darker corners of the internet". In a 2019 statement to Vice, Minds executives expressed their belief that "free expression and transparency as the antidote to radicalization, violence, and extremism".
Minds has partnered with Daryl Davis on a deradicalization project called "Change Minds". Davis is a Black R&B musician who also engages with members of the Ku Klux Klan to try to convince them to leave and disavow the group. Davis has said he hopes to use Minds to teach people how to engage civilly with one another even when they hold opposing views.
Users
Minds told Business Insider it had experienced 60million visits in 2015. In 2018, Wired said that Minds had 1million users in total, 110,000 of whom were active in a given month. In May 2020, Minds reported having more than 2.5million registered users and 300,000 monthly active users.
According to The Guardian, Minds is one of a group of alt-tech websites "whose light touch in content moderation is presented as a commitment to free speech", which has led conservatives to create accounts on the platform to use in the event of bans from more restrictive sites. In January 2021, the New York Times reported that YouTube and Facebook removed tens of thousands of Trump supporters and white supremacists from their platforms, and that Minds was among the alternative apps those users adopted.
Funding
Minds has been funded through venture capital and equity crowdfunding. The company raised $350,000 in 2013. The service later raised $1million via a Regulation CF equity crowdfunding campaign. In October 2018, Minds raised $6million in Series A funding from Medici Ventures, an Overstock.com subsidiary. Patrick M. Byrne, founder and CEO of Overstock.com, joined Minds' board of directors. He was later succeeded by Stanton Huntington, General Counsel at Medici Ventures.
See also
List of social networking websites
8chan
DLive
Gab (social network)
Parler
Voat
References
External links
Alt-tech
Android (operating system) software
American social networking websites
Anonymity
Anonymous (hacker group)
Ethereum tokens
Internet privacy
Internet properties established in 2011
IOS software
Websites with far-right material |
47027916 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TunnelBear | TunnelBear | TunnelBear is a public VPN service based in Toronto, Canada. It was created by Daniel Kaldor and Ryan Dochuk in 2011. In March 2018, TunnelBear was acquired by McAfee.
History
Early History
Tunnelbear was founded in 2011 by Ryan Dochuk and Daniel Kaldor, and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
2018 McAfee acquisition
In 2018, TunnelBear was acquired by cybersecurity company McAfee and subsequently fell under U.S. jurisdiction. McAfee intended to combine its own VPN service with TunnelBear's technologies. At the time of the acquisition, TunnelBear was set to continue using its own brand for products.
Anti-censorship efforts
During the 2014 Venezuelan Protests, TunnelBear offered free service to users connecting from Venezuela. In response to government censorship in countries like Venezuela—including Iran, Turkey and Uganda—TunnelBear has offered free or unlimited data to users within such countries.
Features
A freeware TunnelBear client is available on Android, Windows, macOS and iOS. It also has browser extensions for Google Chrome and Opera. Alternatively, Linux distros can be configured to use TunnelBear.
Like other public VPN services, TunnelBear has the ability to bypass content blocking in most countries.
All TunnelBear clients use AES-256 encryption with the exception of the client for iOS 8 and earlier, which uses AES-128. When connected, the user's actual IP address will not be visible to the websites visited. Instead, the websites and/or computers would be able to see the spoofed IP address provided by the service.
TunnelBear was among the first consumer VPNs to conduct and publicly release the results of an independent security audit. They record when their users connect to the service and publish annual reports on the number of times law enforcement has requested user information.
Reception
Scott Gilbertson of Wired praised TunnelBear's “cute bear animations”, saying that they make the service more approachable, and described the provider as having security features comparable to the competition and an easy-to-understand privacy policy. The provider has faced criticism from WireCutter for comparatively slower speeds and dropped video calls in their tests of the service, but WireCutter stated that TunnelBear excels in “usability, trust, and transparency”. Rae Hodge at CNET criticised the service for its limited server locations and the inability for users to pick an individual server within a location. Hodge also raised concerns that Tunnelbear's records could be subpoenaed because they are a Canadian business owned by an American company.
See also
Comparison of virtual private network services
References
External links
Android (operating system) software
Google Chrome extensions
IOS software
MacOS software
Virtual private network services
Windows software
McAfee
2018 mergers and acquisitions
Nonfree Firefox WebExtensions |
47037392 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark%20%28XMPP%20client%29 | Spark (XMPP client) | Spark is an open-source instant messaging program (based on XMPP protocol) that allows users to communicate in real time. It can be integrated with the Openfire server to provide additional features such as controlling various parts of Spark functionality from a central management console or integrating with a customer support service Fastpath, allowing Spark users to log in to queues, accept and forward support requests, use canned responses. Being a cross-platform application, it can run on various systems. Installers for Windows, macOS and Linux are available on the official website.
History
Previously known as Jive Communicator, it was designed by Jive Software with business usage in mind, with a lightweight graphical design and simplistic user interface. Later, it was open-sourced and donated to the Ignite Realtime community, along with Openfire, for further improvement and development.
Features
Spark is based on a popular open-source Smack API library, also developed by Ignite Realtime. It has a tabbed interface for managing conversations, a quick and full history, and a robust search inside the contacts window, which is designed for organizations with many units and employees. Other features include shortcuts to access recent and favorite contacts, and Spark supports ad hoc and regular group chats. Like most modern IM clients, Spark supports SSL/TLS encryption, and additionally provides an option to use Off-the-Record Messaging for end-to-end encryption. Though it is designed to work with XMPP servers, it can also integrate with Kraken IM Gateway plugin for Openfire, and provide an option to connect with various other IM networks.
Lightweight graphical user interface
Plugins support
Support for SSL/TLS encryption
Client restriction and control with Openfire Client Control plugin
Integration with Openfire Fastpath Service
Support for other proprietary and open IM protocols via Openfire Kraken IM Gateway plugin
Tabbed conversation
Spell checking and automated message translation support
Platform independent
Single sign-on with LDAP support
Skins
Off-the-Record Messaging support
Privacy lists
File transfers
Multi-user chat support
See also
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
References
External links
Official website
GitHub repository
Java platform software
Instant messaging
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Windows software
Linux software
Free software
Free XMPP clients |
47081758 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brivo | Brivo | Brivo, Inc. is a smart building company providing cloud-based access control and video surveillance products for physical security and internet of things applications. On November 10, 2021, Brivo and Crown PropTech Acquisitions, a publicly-traded SPAC, announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement to combine the two entities, resulting in Brivo becoming a publicly-traded company.
Executive Leadership
Steve Van Till is an early Brivo hire (initially as CTO) and today serves as CEO. Dean Drako is Chairman of the board.
History
Brivo was co-founded in 1999 by Carter Griffin, Tim Ogilvie and Mark Stein. After completing a series A financing round of individual investors, the company secured an investment from IDEO Ventures, whose affiliate IDEO product design became its development partner for Brivo’s first product - a last mile delivery solution for unattended and asynchronous delivery of parcels. In 2002, Griffin, Ogilvie and Stein transitioned the company to what became Brivo’s primary market with the introduction of Brivo’s building access control SaaS platform. In 2002, Brivo introduced cloud-based access control to the physical security market. The physical access control system works with door card readers and similar devices, and locks or unlock things once an individual has been authenticated.
Brivo released the ACS5000 access control system in 2005, with Ethernet and GSM cellular connectivity options. In 2007, Brivo introduced its XML application programming interface (API). In 2017, Brivo introduced the availability of two new door access controllers, the ACS6000 and the ACS300, to complement its existing product lines, as well as integration with the Authentic Mercury open platform.
Brivo introduced its IP door controller (IPDC) in 2011, an Ethernet access control panel in a compact form factor, with power over ethernet and FIPS 140-2 validated encryption. IPDC used standard network cabling to the door. In 2013, Brivo announced Brivo Onair, a cloud-based access control and video surveillance physical security system for businesses that automates facility access from one interface.
As of 2015, Brivo stated its cloud-based access control system serviced more than ten million users and more 100,000 access points, such as doors and windows.
Products
Brivo Access. Smart building tool built into the cloud-based Brivo access control platform that organizes and structures data to see events, patterns, with custom reports and charts.
Brivo Snapshot. Video analytics & forensic product for facial and person detection, using machine learning on combined access control and video data streams.
Private acquisition
In June 2015, Brivo was acquired by Dean Drako, Barracuda Networks founder and former CEO, and current President & CEO of Eagle Eye Networks. Drako will serve as Brivo’s Chairman.
Drako said he saw the opportunity to accelerate the cloud technology shift underway in the physical security industry by combining Brivo’s cloud access control with cloud video surveillance from his company Eagle Eye Networks. The two companies will continue to operate as separate entities.
Acquisitions
In March 2020, Brivo announced it acquired Parakeet IoT company as part of its expansion into smart buildings.
Recognition
Gartner named Brivo a “Cool Vendor in Identity and Access Management" for 2014. In the same year, Brivo also released its Social Access Management API.
At the 2018 ISC West Conference, Brivo ACS300 Wireless Access Controller won best product in the “Access Control Software & Controllers” category.
External links
References
companies based in Bethesda, Maryland
electronics companies of the United States
manufacturing companies based in Maryland
physical security |
47083813 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERP%20security | ERP security | ERP Security is a wide range of measures aimed at protecting Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from illicit access ensuring accessibility and integrity of system data. ERP system is a computer software that serves to unify the information intended to manage the organization including Production, Supply Chain Management, Financial Management, Human Resource Management, Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Performance Management. Common ERP systems are SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft Dynamics.
Review
ERP system integrates business processes enabling procurement, payment, transport, human resources management, product management, and financial planning.
As ERP system stores confidential information, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) recommends to regularly conduct a comprehensive assessment of ERP system security, checking ERP servers for software vulnerabilities, configuration errors, segregation of duties conflicts, compliance with relevant standards and recommendations, and recommendations of vendors.
Causes for vulnerabilities in ERP systems
Complexity
ERP systems process transactions and implement procedures to ensure that users have different access privileges. There are hundreds of authorization objects in SAP permitting users to perform actions in the system. In case of 200 users of the company, there are approximately 800,000 (100*2*20*200) ways to customize security settings of ERP systems. With the growth of complexity, the possibility of errors and segregation of duties conflicts increases.
Specificity
Vendors fix vulnerabilities on the regular basis since hackers monitor business applications to find and exploit security issues. SAP releases patches monthly on Patch Tuesday, Oracle issues security fixes every quarter in Oracle Critical Patch Update. Business applications are becoming more exposed to the Internet or migrate to the cloud.
Lack of competent specialists
ERP Cybersecurity survey revealed that organizations running ERP systems "lack both awareness and actions taken towards ERP security".
ISACA states that "there is a shortage of staff members trained in ERP security" and security services have the superficial understanding of risks and threats associated with ERP systems. Consequently, security vulnerabilities complicate undertakings such as detecting and subsequent fixing.
Lack of security auditing tools
ERP security audit is done manually as various tools with ERP packages do not provide means for system security auditing. Manual auditing is a complex and time-consuming process that increases the possibility of making a mistake.
Large number of customized settings
The system includes thousands of parameters and fine settings including segregation of duties for transactions and tables, and the security parameters are set for every single system. ERP system settings are customized according to customers' requirements.
Security issues in ERP systems
Security issues occur in ERP systems at different levels.
Network layer
Traffic interception and modification
Absence of data encryption
In 2011, Sensepost specialists analyzed DIAG protocol used in SAP ERP system for transferring data from the client to the SAP server. Two utilities were published that allowed to intercept, decrypt, and modify client-server requests containing critical information. This made attacks possible including Man-in-the-middle attack. The second utility operates like a Proxy and was created to identify new vulnerabilities. It allowed modifying requests coming to client and server.
Sending password in cleartext (SAP J2EE Telnet / Oracle listener old versions)
In the SAP ERP system, it is possible to perform administering functions via Telnet protocol, which encrypts passwords.
Vulnerabilities in encryption or authentication protocols
Authentication by hash
XOR password encryption (SAP DIAG)
Imposing the use of outdated authentication protocols
Incorrect authentication protocolsVulnerabilities in protocols (e.g. RFC in SAP ERP and Oracle Net in Oracle E-Business Suite).'
RFC protocol is used (Remote Function Call) to connect two systems by TCP/IP in SAP ERP. RFC call is a function that enables calling and running a functional module located in a system. The ABAP language that is used for writing business applications for SAP have functions to make RFC calls. Several critical vulnerabilities were found in SAP RFC Library versions 6.x and 7.x:
RFC function "RFC_SET_REG_SERVER_PROPERTY" allows determining an exclusive use of RFC server. Vulnerability exploits lead to a denial of access for the legitimate users. denial of service becomes possible.
Error in RFC function "SYSTEM_CREATE_INSTANCE". Exploiting vulnerability allows executing arbitrary code.
Error in RFC function "RFC_START_GUI". Exploiting vulnerability also allows executing arbitrary code.
Error in RFC function "RFC_START_PROGRAM". Exploiting vulnerability allows executing arbitrary code or gain information about RFC server configuration.
Error in RFC function "TRUSTED_SYSTEM_SECURITY". Exploiting vulnerability allows obtaining information about existing users and groups in RFC server.
Operating system level
OS software vulnerabilities
Any remote vulnerability in OS is used to gain access to applications
Weak OS passwords
Remote password brute-forcing
Empty passwords for remote management tools like Radmin and VNC
Insecure OS settings
NFS and SMB. SAP data becomes accessible to remote users via NFS an SMB
File access rights. Critical SAP and DBMS Oracle data files have insecure access rights such as 755 and 777
Insecure hosts settings. In the trusted hosts, servers can be listed and an attacker easily accesses them
Application vulnerabilities
ERP systems transfer more functionality on the web applications level with a lot of vulnerabilities:
Web application vulnerabilities (XSS, XSRF, SQL Injection, Response Splitting, Code Execution)
Buffer overflow and format string in web-servers and application-servers (SAP IGS, SAP Netweaver, Oracle BEA Weblogic)
Insecure privileges for access (SAP Netweaver, SAP CRM, Oracle E-Business Suite)
Role-based access control
In ERP systems, RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) model is applied for users to perform transactions and gain access to business objects.
In the model, the decision to grant access to a user is made based on the functions of users, or roles. Roles are a multitude of transactions the user or a group of users performs in the company. Transaction is a procedure of transforming system data, which helps perform this transaction. For any role, there is a number of corresponding users with one or multiple roles. Roles can be hierarchical. After the roles are implemented in the system, transactions corresponding to each role rarely change. The administrator needs to add or delete users from roles. The administrator provides a new user with a membership in one or more roles. When employees leave the organization, the administrator removes them from all the roles.
Segregation of Duties
Segregation or Separation of duties, also known as SoD, is the concept according to which a user cannot make a transaction without other users (e.g. a user cannot add a new supplier, write out a cheque or pay to a supplier) and a risk of fraud is much lower. SoD can be implemented by RBAC mechanisms, and a notion of mutually exclusive roles is introduced. For instance, to pay a supplier, one user initiates payment procedure and another accepts it. In this case, initiating payment and accepting are mutually exclusive roles. Segregation of duties can be either static or dynamic. With static SoD (SSoD), a user cannot belong to two mutually exclusive roles. With dynamic SoD (DSoD), a user does but cannot perform them within one transaction. Both of them have their own advantages. SSoD is simple, while DSoD is flexible. Segregation of Duties is explained in SoD matrix. X and Y matrixes describe system roles. If the two roles are mutually exclusive, there is a flag at the interception of the corresponding rows and columns.
The examples of Segregation of Duties software:
Appsian Security Platform for Oracle E-Business Suite and SAP ECC/S4HANA
ERP Security scanners
ERP Security scanner is a software intended to search for vulnerabilities in ERP systems. Scanner analyzes configurations of ERP system, searches for misconfigurations, access control and encryption conflicts, insecure components, and checks for updates. The scanner checks system parameters for compliance with the manufacturer's recommendations and auditing procedures ISACA. ERP Security scanners produce reports with the vulnerabilities listed according to their criticality.
The examples of scanners:
SecurityBridge Holistic Cybersecurity Platform for SAP ERP
ERPScan for SAP ERP
Onapsis for SAP ERP
Safe O'Clock for SAP ERP
AppSentry for Oracle E-Business Suite
Appsian Security Platform for Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle PeopleSoft
MaxPatrol for SAP ERP
ERP Data Security
ERP Data Security is software intended to provide fine-grained access controls and visibility to specific transactions and data fields within an ERP application. The intention of ERP Data Security is to ensure that access to data is dynamically enforced based on the context of a user's access versus pre-defined roles and privileges. Both of which can be corrupted or exploited. ERP Data Security software is intended to work in conjunction with an organizations' existing ERP security and identity & access management controls, but provides granular, fine-grained levels of protection for particularly sensitive financial and PII data fields.
ERP Data Security Use Cases:
Securing remote users
Enforcing zero trust and least privilege
Preventing data exfiltration
Privileged access management
Segregation of Duties
Limiting risk exposure in financial transactions
Threat detection, response & forensics
Custom code vulnerability detection
The examples of ERP data security software:
Appsian Security Platform for Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle PeopleSoft, and SAP ECC/S4HANA
References
ERP Security
Computer security |
47118309 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2n | S2n | s2n is an open-source C99 implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and released in 2015. It was developed to ensure the code—about 6,000 lines long—would be easier to review than that of OpenSSL—with 500,000 lines, 70,000 of which are involved in processing TLS.
History
s2n was released on June 30, 2015 on GitHub. AWS said that the name "s2n" stand for signal to noise as a nod "to the almost magical act of encryption—disguising meaningful signals, like your critical data, as seemingly random noise". It has been the subject of several external reviews as well as penetration testing.
It was reportedly vulnerable to Lucky Thirteen attack. In response, Amazon's s2n team said it would remove CBC-mode cipher suites and take code from BoringSSL to replace its own CBC-mode decryption. An AWS Security Blog Post said that it did not impact Amazon, AWS, or its customers because they had never been used in a production environment.
In February 2017, Amazon announced that s2n was now handling 100% of SSL traffic for Amazon S3.
Features
TLS extensions
Common TLS extensions supported by this software are Server Name Indication, Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation, and Online Certificate Status Protocol.
Cryptography
s2n supports the main ciphers in use today, such as AES in CBC and GCM modes, 3DES and RC4. It also provides support for perfect forward secrecy through Diffie–Hellman or Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman ephemeral keys.
Weaker ciphers and key exchange modes are disabled by default.
Language bindings
The language bindings below were not developed by AWS:
Lua: LuaJIT 2.0 binding
Python: CyS2N
References
Cryptographic software
C (programming language) libraries
Free security software
Transport Layer Security implementation |
47193942 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel%20patch | Kernel patch | Kernel patch may refer to:
Kernel Patch Protection (KPP), a feature of 64-bit (x64) editions of Microsoft Windows that prevents patching the kernel, informally known as PatchGuard
kpatch, a feature of the Linux kernel that implements live patching of a running kernel
Ksplice, an extension of the Linux kernel that allows security patches to be applied to a running kernel
XNU kernel patch, a series of initial patches necessary to run the OSx86 kernel on non-Apple hardware
TRESOR, a Linux kernel patch which provides CPU-only based encryption to defend against cold boot attacks |
47254008 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket%20PC%202000 | Pocket PC 2000 | Pocket PC 2000 (marketed as Pocket PC) is the first member of the Windows Mobile family of mobile operating systems that was released on April 19, 2000, and was based on Windows CE 3.0. It is the successor to the operating system aboard Palm-size PCs. Backwards compatibility was retained with such Palm-size PC applications. Pocket PC 2000 was intended mainly for Pocket PC devices, however several Palm-size PC devices had the ability to be updated also. Further, several Pocket PC 2000 phones were released, however Microsoft's "Smartphone" hardware platform was not yet created. The only resolution supported by this release was 240 x 320 (QVGA). Removable storage card formats that were supported were CompactFlash and MultiMediaCard. At this time Pocket PC devices had not been standardized with a specific CPU architecture. As a result, Pocket PC 2000 was released on multiple CPU architectures; SH-3, MIPS, and ARM. Infrared (IR) File beaming capability was among the original hardware features.
Pocket PC 2000 aesthetically resembled Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. Pocket PC 2000 is unsupported as of September 10, 2007.
This initial release had multiple built-in applications, many of them similarly branded to match their desktop counterparts, such as Microsoft Reader, Microsoft Money, Pocket Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player. A version of Microsoft Office called Pocket Office was also bundled and included Pocket Word, Pocket Excel and Pocket Outlook. Notes, a note-taking app saw its first release and would be supported by most later versions of Windows Mobile.
History
Microsoft long knew of the importance and potential of mobile computers, and in the 1990s had made previous attempts to capture the market. It released in 1993 Windows for Pen Computing, a software used to add pen computing functions to mobile computers running Windows 3.1. The software's potential for success was hampered by its ponderous base code and the fact that handwriting recognition technology at the time had practical limitations. Microsoft then sought to develop a device called WinPad, which would have been used to wirelessly access and synchronize data between it and desktop machines, as well as other WinPads, but its operating system's large consumption of resources caused the company to redesign as Microsoft at Work, an embedded operating system for office machines, with similar synchronization functions. However, its delayed, costly development and device manufacturers' subsequently abandoning it led to the project's cancellation. During that time, Microsoft also began work on a project to develop a device used to communicate with paging systems, and its operating system was to be used in set-top boxes, but that project proved to be too ambitious and thus folded in 1995.
The teams of the two cancelled projects were consolidated in 1995, and Microsoft hoped to create a mobile device that ran on the Windows NT kernel. It decided to use its new kernel, Windows CE, after realizing that Windows NT was too bulky to fit on a device. This kernel debuted in Microsoft's "Handheld PC", and reappeared in the company's Palm-size PC, both of which were criticized for their slow performance, short battery life, and graphical user interface. With these devices, Microsoft had only ten percent of the personal digital assistant (PDA) market share, whereas its rival, Palm, Inc., had over half of it.
Microsoft reapproached Windows CE's design in the development of its third PDA, then codenamed "Rapier". Its desktop user interface was replaced with one more suited for mobile devices, more applications came preinstalled, and the company more firmly defined and extended both the hardware and software specifications to ensure software compatibility. Windows CE 3.0 became the operating system for Microsoft's next PDA and the first member of the Windows Mobile family, Pocket PC, and it was launched on April 19, 2000. A Japanese-language edition of Pocket PC was released in Japan on July 13. To distinguish it from its successors, the operating system is now referred to as Pocket PC 2000. Mainstream support for the operating system ended on September 30, 2005, and extended support was dropped on October 9, 2007.
System features
With the kernal of Pocket PC 2000, the third version of Windows CE, the user interface was designed from the ground up to more closely resemble Palm OS's and much less that of a personal computer, while still retaining the look and feel of Windows desktops. The first screen that is displayed upon booting is the Today screen, where the user can check their email inbox and view the calendar and their scheduled appointments and tasks, as well as the device's owner information. The top of the screen is filled by a navigation bar, which on the left side contains a button that opens the Start menu and on the right the current time. On the bottom of the screen is a "command bar", containing menus and buttons that execute commands for programs. The user navigates the interface by tapping the stylus and pressing the buttons on the device. New to Microsoft's line of PDAs is tapping and holding on items to open context menus, analogous to right-clicking on a desktop computer.
When the Start button is tapped, the Start menu drops down, revealing a bar of six last-run applications, a number of pinned applications, the menus where the applications and system settings are located, the ability to search files' names and contents, and an online application that provides help relevant to the current program. Files are managed using the File Explorer. They may be placed inside folders, and are all found inside the root folder, My Device. Character input is provided via either an online character or handwriting recognition system or an on-screen keyboard.
Pocket PC 2000 is bundled with a pocket version of Microsoft Office, an office suite that features pocket versions of Excel and Word. Also included is a pocket version of the web browser Internet Explorer, based on version 3.1. Features of version 3.1 not supported by Pocket Internet Explorer are Java applets; VBScript; and the HTML tags , , , , , , and . The web browser's encryption key size is only 40 bits long, rather than 128 bits at the time. Microsoft released a separate add-on offering support for the 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer protocol.
The capabilities of the hardware devices running Pocket PC made the operating system suitable for multimedia and playing Windows CE games. Windows Media Player is used to play back MP3 and WMA files. Voice Recorder is used to capture sound via the device's microphone, which is then saved in the WAV format, and can be played back here. A majority of the games for Windows CE were made freely downloadable from the Internet, and a few were titles launched commercially at retail stores and on websites. Included in every Pocket PC device is the phenomenal card game Microsoft Solitaire. The rest of the games are installed by connecting the device to and running the setup program on a computer.
Hardware
All Pocket PC 2000 devices have a USB port and an infrared port that meets the Infrared Data Association standard. The USB port has the sole function of synchronizing data with PCs and does not support peripherals. The infrared port is used to transfer data between PCs or other Pocket PC devices at a maximum speed of 115.2 kbps.
Most Pocket PC 2000 devices shipped with 32 MB of random access memory (RAM) and a few had an expansion slot for memory cards. These slots supported PC cards and those for mobile devices, such as the CompactFlash. The memory itself is used to store both files and working data, and is allocated to either of them both automatically and manually. There was no standard for which instruction set architecture to use, but all devices used either MIPS, SH-3, or StrongARM processors. The processors ran with top speeds ranging from 131 to 206 MHz.
Reception
CNET compared Pocket PC 2000 and Palm OS devices and considered the latter to be its favorite personal digital assistant, scoring it 8 points out of 10—one point higher than Pocket PC—because of its simple interface, stability, and lower price. It praised Pocket PC's improved user interface, bundled applications and ability to continuously synchronize mobile and desktop computer data, but criticized its inconsistent character recognition system. It concluded that Pocket PC was best suited for users who liked Windows and were unconcerned about budget. InfoWorld viewed the operating system as an excellent platform for application developers, especially those writing in C++, praising the ease of development and portability of Windows applications, as well as support for networking and database access, although criticizing the lack of scripting in JScript and VBScript and decisions by hardware manufacturers such as to limit the devices to one expansion slot, not design their USB ports for expandability, and an underpowered infrared. It wrote that Pocket PC was a viable alternative to laptops for its price.
Within ten months, one million devices running Pocket PC 2000 were shipped. In May 2001, the figure was 1.25 million. NPD Intelect reported that in the US, the devices made for 26 percent of sales priced at $350 or higher, but only 10 percent of sales overall, and that Palm OS devices filled almost all of the rest of the market share. By August, about two million Pocket PC devices were sold. The best-selling model series was Compaq's iPAQ, which had dominated the market since its debut in 2000. The operating system's successor, Pocket PC 2002, was released in October 2001.
References
Further reading
External links
Official website. .
Pocket PC 2000 on Pocket PC FAQ. .
2000 software
Windows CE devices
Windows Mobile |
47275252 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald%20Niederreiter | Harald Niederreiter | Harald G. Niederreiter (born June 7, 1944) is an Austrian mathematician known for his work in discrepancy theory, algebraic geometry, quasi-Monte Carlo methods, and cryptography.
Education and career
Niederreiter was born on June 7, 1944, in Vienna, and grew up in Salzburg. He began studying mathematics at the University of Vienna in 1963, and finished his doctorate there in 1969, with a thesis on discrepancy in compact abelian groups supervised by Edmund Hlawka.
He began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Vienna, but soon moved to Southern Illinois University. During this period he also visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute for Advanced Study, and University of California, Los Angeles. In 1978 he moved again, becoming the head of a new mathematics department at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. In 1981 he returned to Austria for a post at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where from 1989 to 2000 he served as director of the Institutes of Information Processing and Discrete Mathematics. In 2001 he became a professor at the National University of Singapore. In 2009 he returned to Austria again, to the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He also worked from 2010 to 2011 as a professor at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia.
Research
Niederreiter's initial research interests were in the abstract algebra of abelian groups and finite fields, subjects also represented by his later book Finite Fields (with Rudolf Lidl, 1983). From his doctoral thesis onwards, he also incorporated discrepancy theory and the theory of uniformly distributed sets in metric spaces into his study of these subjects.
In 1970, Niederreiter began to work on numerical analysis and random number generation, and in 1974 he published the book Uniform Distribution of Sequences. Combining his work on pseudorandom numbers with the Monte Carlo method, he did pioneering research in the quasi-Monte Carlo method in the late 1970s, and again later published a book on the topic, Random Number Generation and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods (1995).
Niederreiter's interests in pseudorandom numbers also led him to study stream ciphers in the 1980s, and this interest branched out into other areas of cryptography such as public key cryptography. The Niederreiter cryptosystem, an encryption system based on error-correcting codes that can also be used for digital signatures, was developed by him in 1986. His work in cryptography is represented by his book Algebraic Geometry in Coding Theory and Cryptography (with C. P. Xing, 2009).
Returning to pure mathematics, Niederreiter has also made contributions to algebraic geometry with the discovery of many dense curves over finite fields, and published the book Rational Points on Curves over Finite Fields: Theory and Applications (with C. P. Xing, 2001).
Awards and honors
Niederreiter is a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 1998 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, and won the Kardinal Innitzer Prize. He became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2013.
Niederreiter's book Random Number Generation and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods'' won the Outstanding Simulation Publication Award.
In 2014, a workshop in honor of Niederreiter's 70th birthday was held at the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and a Festschrift was published in his honor.
References
1944 births
Living people
Austrian mathematicians
University of Vienna alumni
University of Vienna faculty
Southern Illinois University faculty
University of the West Indies academics
National University of Singapore faculty
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals faculty
Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society |
47298244 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Throwaways%20%28film%29 | The Throwaways (film) | The Throwaways is a 2015 American action film directed by Tony Bui, written by Don Handfield and Michael Ross, and starring Sam Huntington, Katie McGrath, Christian Hillborg, Jack Kesy, Kevin Dillon, and James Caan. It premiered on January 30, 2015, on Crackle.
Plot
When the infamous hacker Drew Reynolds is captured by the CIA, he is faced with a choice. Either to spend his life in jail or work for them. Reynolds agrees to work for the CIA should he be able to form his own squad team called the “Throwaways.” This team was seen as expendable and deemed the worst in the whole organization.
The film opens with lone wolf patriot blackjack hacker Drew Reynolds living in solitude and doing what he does best: hacking anyone he feels is a threat to America and the free world, including various jihadist and other terrorist organizations and straw militia groups. His friend in cybersecurity, Erik, alerts him that the CIA has tracked him down and though he manages to briefly elude them, he is captured. Upon meeting with him, Agents Holden (a former mentor of Drew) and Connelly offer him a deal: spend 30 years to life in prison or work for them to catch an even greater threat. An unidentified hacker has somehow managed to tap into Chicago's power grid using a volatile program known as "Pantheon" and shut it down completely thanks to a special encryption key that allows him access to the entire Internet and World Wide Web and beyond. If this device gets into the wrong hands, the entire world will be at the mercy of any number of terrorists, most likely the highest bidder. Offered a deal where he could forego a possible life sentence if he agrees to use his expertise to locate this hacker, Drew accepts in exchange for total immunity on one condition: he picks the team of experts he will be working with.
Over the reservations of Connelly and Holden, Drew picks three agents who had been deemed as "Throwaways" based on their lack of success or other factors: Dan Fisher, a short tempered and violence-prone ex-agent who's been relegated to basement duty; Gloria Miller, a "swallow" agent who successfully seduces her marks but is nonetheless not taken seriously by her cohorts; and Dmitri Stanislav, a cowardly ex-KGB Russian with a history of deserting his comrades (including Fisher at one point) on dangerous missions. As the mission progresses the team are able to learn that the hacker in question is Teebs, a young anarchist who intends to sell the key on the black market to the highest bidder, who ends up being a pro-Soviet Russian defector named Olag Konstantin. It is also revealed that Drew faked the algorithm process by which he chose his team; he simply read their files and selected them based on their shoddy records hoping that the mission would end in failure. With his immunity deal having already been signed, Drew could then go back to working alone. The others discover this following an assassination attempt on Holden, after which Connelly disbands the team but commends them for proving far more successful than he'd previously thought they would be. Furious, Fisher, Gloria, and Dmitri leave in a huff.
Shortly after, a failed raid to apprehend Teebs's and Konstantin's broker results in Connelly and his team being killed. Drew has Erik pull up everything he can on Teebs while at the same time, Holden identifies one of the assassins who murdered Connelly and his team as Bes, a chameleon agent posing as Teebs's girlfriend who is under Konstantin's employ. Shortly afterward, Teebs reactivates Pantheon at Konstantin's order, causing Bulgaria to experience total blackout. Thanks to Erik's help, Drew is able locate Teebs and after an apology followed by a rousing pep talk, he and Holden are able to convince their former team members to return and finish the mission.
Once the team is back together, they sneak into Konstantin's headquarters. Drew finds Teebs and tries to convince him to hand over the key. Teebs attacks him instead, but drops the key when Drew shoots him, destroying it and forcing Drew to bypass the hardwired encryption in order to restore Bulgaria's power and prevent a lethal gas valve failure. Gloria, Fisher, and Dmitri take on Konstantin and his men in a lengthy and caper-filled confrontation. Gloria manages to kill Bes while Dmitri and Fisher are able to take out Konstantin and the soldiers with an RPG launcher.
Their mission a success, Drew is made an official CIA agent under Holden's command and is teamed up with the now fully reestablished agents before they eagerly head out on their next mission. Meanwhile, a post-credits scene shows Teebs retrieving another Pantheon key from a strongbox in an unknown location.
Cast
Sam Huntington as Drew Reynolds
Kevin Dillon as Dan Fisher
Katie McGrath as Gloria
Christian Hillborg as Dmitri Stanislav
James Caan as Lt. Col. Christopher Holden
Jack Kesy as Connelly
Noel Clarke as Erik Williamson
Alfie Stewart as Teebs
Darrell D'Silva as Olag Konstantin
Bashar Rahal as The Broker
Amber Jean Rowan as Bes
Peter Brooke as Agent Langstrom
Atanas Srebrev as Princeton
Production
Principal photography began in September 2014. The film was originally scheduled to premiere on December 19, 2014, but was pushed back due to the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack. The film premiered on January 30, 2015, on Crackle.
References
External links
2015 films
American films
English-language films
American action films
2015 action films |
47327601 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic%20AppWrapper | Electronic AppWrapper | The Electronic AppWrapper (EAW) was an early commercial electronic software distribution catalog.
Originally, the AppWrapper was a traditional printed catalog, which later developed into the Electronic AppWrapper, offering electronic distribution and software licensing for third party developers on NeXT systems. AppWrapper #4 App Store app ran on NeXT, HP-PA RISC, Intel and SUN Sparc and was available via the World Wide Web at paget.com. It is considered to be the first app store.
According to Richard Carey, an employee of Paget Press who was present in 1993, the Electronic AppWrapper was first demonstrated to Steve Jobs by Jesse Tayler at NeXTWorld Expo. The EAW went on to receive recognition from Robert Wyatt of Wired magazine and Simson Garfinkel of NeXTWorld magazine.
An interview with Jesse Tayler, the lead engineer and inventor of EAW, discussed the early days of AppWrapper and how the transition to the foundation of the World Wide Web and his program had similarities.
Some software developers with titles on the EAW have continued over the decades and transitioned into the modern Apple Inc. era. Andrew Stone is one example, who designed programs that were available on the EAW and still designs apps for the App Store today.
History
In the early 1990s Paget Press, a Seattle based software distribution company, developed the Electronic AppWrapper which was the first electronic App Store on NeXT. Critically, the application storefront itself is what provides a secure, uniform experience that automates the electronic purchase, decryption and installation of software applications or other digital media.
The Electronic AppWrapper started initially as a paper catalog, which was released periodically. The AppWrapper was a combination of both a catalog and magazine, which listed the vast majority of software products available for the NeXT Computer.
Within the first couple of publications, the AppWrapper began to have a digital counterpart, with the introduction of CD-ROM disks in the back of later issues of what then to be called The Electronic AppWrapper as well as a website at paget.com. EAW is considered the first App Store partly because of Steve Jobs, but because it was the first true application storefront made to search and review software titles. Critically, the storefront application itself provides a standard, secure way to electronically purchase, decrypt and install apps automatically end-to-end.
The Electronic AppWrapper was mostly apps with some music or other digital media, the iTunes Music Store was mostly music and some iPod apps. Apple's Garage Band even purveys digital music lessons using the very same iTunes account as used for the iOS App Store, they are all part of the same App Store. Electronic bookstores such as Kindle, Barnes and Noble or Kobo are further examples of successful electronic distribution using the App Store concept.
For the Electronic AppWrapper distribution, encryption and the digital rights of the software were universally managed for all participating developers much like stores participating in a shopping mall.
Software has always been electronically transferred, and encryption has always been part of computing.
The introduction of unified commercial software distribution catalog with a true application storefront to collectively manage and provide encryption for apps and media was a seminal invention. This is because by protecting the digital rights of artists online, the App Store provided the first viable economic and instant distribution mechanism which ultimately exploded the pace of software adoption and created an economic boom.
When compared to shipping boxes and printing user manuals, the pace and efficiency provided by the App Store is profound and has changed software distribution forever.
During the early development of the Electronic AppWrapper, it became the first commercial software distribution catalog to allow digital data encryption and provide digital rights management for apps, music and data. This was a tremendous advance for the independent developers who could not possibly access the financial resources to publish software boxes across the country and the world, in order to reach their audience.
The NeXT Computer initially came without a floppy disk drive, which created an urgent need to invent a new form of software distribution. The AppWrapper contained all kinds of various types of software, including general third party applications, music and media. The invention was part of a movement to protect the rights of third party developers and distribute software without the expense of printing manuals and delivering boxes, something that today is seen universally as then norm.
Other advantages of the EAW included levelling the playing field for software distribution. It allowed independent or smaller software companies to distribute their apps quickly, and compete with larger companies with more established distribution channels. The EAW also provided ways that software updates could reach existing customers, something that was uncommon at the time.
The product was first demonstrated to Steve Jobs at the NeXTWorld Expo in 1993. The Electronic AppWrapper received recognition later in the year, with a senior editor at NeXTWORLD Magazine, Simson Garfinkel rated The Electronic AppWrapper 4 3/4 Cubes (out of 5), in his formal review. Also, Paget's Electronic AppWrapper was named a finalist in the highly competitive InVision Multimedia '93 awards in January, 1993 and won the Best of Breed award for Content and Information at NeXTWORLD Expo in May, 1993.
Following the development of the AppWrapper and its subsequent use of the early Internet in its early days, The AppWrapper went on to feature in Wired magazine, where they stated that it was at the time the best way to distribute and license software.
Mechanics
The Electronic AppWrapper operated by taking a percentage of each sale of the software it listed. Due to the scale of the operation in the early days, the price was negotiated individually with each developer.
References
1991 software
Software distribution
NeXT |
47379752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media%20Block | Media Block | A Media Block or Integrated Media Block is a component in a digital cinema projection system. Its purpose is to convert the Digital Cinema Package (DCP) content into data that ultimately produces picture and sound in a theater in compliance with DCI anti-piracy encryption requirements.
Terminology
DCI specification allows for two different security system architectures.
In the first the Media Block is outside of the projector. This design is simply referred to as a "Media Block" and is typically a device attached directly to the motherboard of a Digital Cinema server. The media block is usually connected to the projector by dual-link SDI cables. Such media block is limited to processing 2K output, downscaling 4K DCPs if necessary.
The second architecture describes an "Integrated Media Block" (IMB). This refers to a device attached and integrated directly into the projector, which receives image data from the server, usually via a cat6 Ethernet connection. They can process 2K and 4K output.
Some hardware implementations integrate the entire server on a single board and are able to work both as a MB as well as an IMB.
Security Features
Upon ingestion into a DCP server, KDMs are stored on flash memory in the media block or IMB. A KDM is written to enable the playback of a specific DCP during a specific time windows and on a specific media block or IMB, identified by its serial number during the authoring process. Media blocks and IMBs also contain a secure clock that is set in the factory cannot be altered by the end user, which the DCP servers to which they are attached use to determine showtimes. The secure clock prevents theaters from showing encrypted movies outside the times authorized by the KDM (e.g. after it has expired) by simply changing the date and time in the server's BIOS. Media blocks and IMBs also typically include anti-tamper devices, designed to self-destruct the unit if unauthorized modification of its hardware, software or secure clock is attempted.
References
Film and video technology
Film and video terminology
Digital media |
47428161 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns%20and%20controversies%20at%20the%202022%20Winter%20Olympics | Concerns and controversies at the 2022 Winter Olympics | The 2022 Winter Olympics took place between the 4 and 20 February 2022 and were hosted by in China in their capital city of Beijing. The country selected was the subject of various concerns and controversies about their cost, environmental impact, censorship, espionage, COVID-19, sportswashing, and human rights issues.
There have been diplomatic boycotts of the Olympics largely due to the human rights situation in China, and the Uyghur genocide in particular. China has also faced boycott for allegedly politicising the Olympics.
Criticism of host selection
American sportscaster Bob Costas criticized the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) decision to award the games to China saying "The IOC deserves all of the disdain and disgust that comes their way for going back to China yet again" referencing China's human rights record.
After winning two gold medals and returning to his home country of Sweden skater Nils van der Poel criticized the IOC's selection of China as the host saying "I think it is extremely irresponsible to give it to a country that violates human rights as blatantly as the Chinese regime is doing." He had declined to criticize China before leaving for the games saying "I don’t think it would be particularly wise for me to criticize the system I’m about to transition to, if I want to live a long and productive life."
Organizing concerns and controversies
Cost and climate
Several cities withdrew their applications during the bidding process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support to host the 2022 games, leaving Almaty in Kazakhstan and Beijing as the only candidate cities by 1 October 2014.
The decision to bid for the Olympics was controversial in China (and outside), because Beijing itself, and especially some of the proposed outdoor venues, would not have reliable snowfall in winter for snow sports. Concerns have been raised that snow may need to be transported to the venues at great cost and with uncertain environmental consequences.
Promotional song
Some commentators alleged that one of the early promotional songs for the 2022 Winter Olympics, "The Snow and Ice Dance", sung by Sun Nan and Tan Jing, had suspicious similarities with "Let It Go", one of the songs from the 2013 Disney film, Frozen. A Chinese media outlet cited technical analysis of the two songs: both songs employ a piano as the major instrument, have similar prelude chords and an eight-beat introduction, and they run at almost exactly the same tempo.
Diplomatic boycotts
The following countries have confirmed a diplomatic boycott of the games:
Background
After China had won the bid to host the 2022 Olympics, many Tibetan protesters had criticized the IOC for allowing China to host the games again due to its policies against Tibetans. In the aftermath of the 2019 leak of the Xinjiang papers, the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, China's hostage diplomacy and the Uyghur genocide, calls were made for a boycott of the 2022 Games. In November 2021 the disappearance of former Olympian Peng Shuai after she made allegations of sexual assault against Zhang Gaoli, former Vice Premier of China and a high ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member, has put pressure on the International Olympic Committee.
Some human rights organizations have called for a diplomatic boycott that would mean countries not sending their heads of state or high-ranking officials to the Olympics but still sending athletes. In a 30 July 2020 letter, the World Uyghur Congress urged the IOC to reconsider holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing because of the Uyghur genocide. The World Uyghur Congress does not support a full boycott; instead, they want athletes to use the games as a chance to raise awareness about the Uyghur genocide, similar to the way that athletes have raised the profile of the Black Lives Matter movement. The IOC met with activists in late 2020 about their request to move the Olympics. In March 2021, the IOC president Thomas Bach opposed a boycott, which would also damage the IOC image and finances, and said that the IOC must stay out of politics. On 14 October 2021, the executive vice-president of the IOC, John Coates, said that the IOC would not challenge the Chinese government over the issue of the Uyghurs, stating that it was "not within the IOC's remit".
On 23 June 2021 (Olympic Day), multiple Tibetan, Uyghur, Hongkonger, Chinese, Taiwanese and Southern Mongolian representatives staged protests in 50 cities worldwide, calling for a mass boycott.
On 7 September 2021, human rights groups called on Olympics broadcasters, including NBC, to cancel the broadcasting plans for 2022 Olympics due to China's human rights issue.
In January 2022, it was reported that the United States is considering legislation to strip the IOC of its federal tax-exempt status in response to the IOC's "refusal to challenge China on human rights abuses".
More than 200 human rights organizations have voiced support for a boycott of the games. Groups protesting the games have called them the "Genocide Games."
United States
In October 2018, Senator Marco Rubio, on behalf of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, asked that China be deprived of the hosting rights for the 2022 Olympics due to the "dire human rights situation" there. In September 2020, United States Senator Rick Scott spoke with the IOC Vice President about reconsidering the IOC's decision to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. On 25 February 2021, U.S. Representative John Katko stated that China is "a country that's engaged in genocide" and called upon the United States to boycott participation in the 2022 Winter Olympics. In March 2021, Senator Mitt Romney called for an "economic and diplomatic boycott" of the 2022 Winter Olympics, in which U.S. athletes would still participate, but no American spectators or dignitaries would attend. In May 2021, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for a diplomatic boycott and said heads of state should not "honor China" by attending the Olympic Games. In July 2021, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called on the IOC to relocate or postpone the games.
In April 2021, it was reported that the Biden administration was "not discussing any joint boycott with allies and partners."
In a survey taken in August 2021, 49 percent of Americans believe that China's human rights record should prevent it from hosting the winter Olympics in 2022 and 33 percent are not sure.
On 18 November 2021, President Joe Biden said the U.S. is "considering" a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Some, like US senator Tom Cotton, called for a full boycott of the games, which would bar U.S. athletes from competing and bar U.S. companies from sponsoring the games. Due to a change in the last version of the Olympic Charter, a full boycott by the United States, like the one at the 1980 Summer Olympics, could result in the most severe punishment, which is the suspension by the National Olympic Committee for 2 years of the Olympic Games, a similar situation to what happened with North Korea in the 2020 games.
On 6 December 2021, White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, announced that the Biden administration would initiate a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2022 Winter Paralympics. The diplomatic boycott would bar all US government officials from attending the games in an official capacity. The White House cited China's mistreatment of the Uyghur people as the reason for the boycott. The White House said it stopped short of a full boycott, because "it would not be fair to punish athletes who have trained for years".
On 27 December 2021, the Chinese foreign ministry said it has received visa applications for 18 US officials to attend the games. The US said that the visa applications were consistent with its diplomatic boycott as the applicants would only be providing "consular and diplomatic security services" to its athletes.
Australia
China's alleged use of coercive diplomacy against Australia has led to increased calls within Australia to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics. In November 2020, Australian Senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick officially proposed a boycott, but their proposal was voted down. Australia has decided that no Australian based politician or officials will be attending the games, and Canberra has also refused to sign the Olympic Truce for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
On 7 December 2021, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated that Australia would join with the United States in the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 games. He stated that it was "human rights abuses," referencing the ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region, as well as "many other issues that Australia has consistently raised". He went on to state that it was "no surprise" that Canberra would do this following consistent deterioration of relations between Canberra and Beijing. Morrison also stated that the decision was "in Australia's national interest," and that it is the "right thing to do."
India
After it was revealed that People's Liberation Army regimental commander Qi Fabao, who led the Chinese troops during skirmishes against Indian troops during the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, would be one of the torchbearers during the opening ceremony of the games, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi stated: "It is indeed regrettable that the Chinese side has chosen to politicize an event like the Olympics". Bagchi also stated that the chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of India in Beijing will not attend the opening or closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The CEO of Prasar Bharati, India's public broadcaster, announced that they will not air the 2022 Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremony.
Qi Fabao had been captured in June 2020 by Indian forces when he tried to mount an attack on Indian forces in the Galwan Valley, according to an investigative report by the Australian newspaper The Klaxon. According to the report, 38 Chinese troops drowned in the early stages of the 15–16 June face-off between Indian and Chinese forces while attempting to cross the Galwan River at Line of Actual Control in the dark. The Chinese government accepted four casualties.
Calls for boycotts by other countries
In a non-binding motion in February 2021, the Canadian House of Commons called for the IOC to move the Olympics to a new location. In a nationwide survey conducted in March 2021, 54% of Canadians said the country should boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, while 24% believed it should not and 21% were not sure.
In July 2021, the European Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom voted in favor of a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
On 19 November 2021, 17 members of the Lithuanian national parliament Seimas released an official letter encouraging Lithuania to withdraw from the 2022 Olympics due human rights violations in China. Daina Gudzinevičiūtė, president of National Olympic Committee of Lithuania, released a statement that Olympic games should be politically neutral and confirmed that committee has no plans to boycott the games. Lithuania's president, Gitanas Nauseda, released a statement confirming the Lithuanian diplomatic boycott on 3 December 2021. This was due to concerns of human rights abuses in China.
On 8 December 2021, the United Kingdom and Canada joined the United States and Australia, whom both announced diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
In December 2021, the government of Latvia announced that it would not send diplomats to the games.
In January 2022, the governments of Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands separately announced that they will not send diplomats to the games.
Relationship to other non-attending countries
The following countries have confirmed they will not send official representatives to the Winter Olympics but not as part of the diplomatic boycott campaign.
Chinese Government response
In February 2021, the Chinese Communist Party-owned tabloid Global Times warned that China could "seriously sanction any country that follows a boycott." In March 2021, Chinese spokesperson Guo Weimin stated that any attempt to boycott the Olympics would be doomed to fail. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also told the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that they should attend the games to "enhance exchanges on winter sport," and to "foster new highlights" in bilateral cooperation.
On 29 November 2021, Chinese media reported that China reportedly does not plan to invite Western politicians who threaten a diplomatic boycott to the Beijing Winter Olympics.
IOC response
The IOC has stated that it remains neutral in all global political issues and that the award of hosting the games does not mean that the IOC agrees with the political structure, social circumstances, or human rights standards in the country they are held in. "We've repeatedly said it: the IOC isn't responsible for the government. It only gives the rights and opportunity for the staging of the Olympic Games. That doesn't mean we agree with all the politics, all the social or human rights issues in the country. And it doesn't mean we approve of all the human rights violations of a person or people," the committee's response to AFP read. This position has generated criticism, with Jules Boykoff accusing the IOC of hypocrisy by saying that it ignores its charter that promotes equality and anti-discrimination when it is convenient to do so and that the IOC has shown an "unfortunate propensity for turning away from human rights atrocities to make sure that the games go on."
On 8 September 2021, after the IOC suspended the North Korean NOC for not being present at the 2020 Summer Olympics, there was speculation about whether the IOC was also intending to send a message to nations considering a boycott of the games that they could be banned from participation in future Olympic Games if they chose to boycott this edition. On 14 October 2021, the executive vice-president of the IOC, Australian John Coates, said that the IOC would not challenge the Chinese government over the issue of the Uyghurs, stating that it was "not within the IOC's remit".
However, during the opening ceremony, IOC president, Thomas Bach had called for the end of various types of discrimination during his speech indirectly referring to the human rights abuses in China.
Athletes and team officials complaints
Athletes participating have said, the games "are not living up to the hype — especially considering how China promised the world a “streamlined, safe and most splendid Games.” Team officials from delegations including Belgium, Germany and the Russian Olympic Committee have all brought up issues facing their athletes in quarantine hotels, among them no internet, low-quality food, insufficient facilities and no training equipment.
Quarantine facilities
Polish short track speed skater Natalia Maliszewska posted on Twitter, "I don’t believe in anything anymore. In no tests. No games. It’s a big joke for me" after a series of mistakes by Chinese officials conducting COVID-19 tests on her. Meanwhile, Finnish men's ice hockey team's coach Jukka Jalonen accused China of not respecting the human rights of athlete Marko Anttila, who had not received food and was under a lot of stress while in quarantine.
On February 2, Belgian skeleton athlete Kim Meylemans posted on social media and was in tears about the conditions she faced while in quarantine. Meylemans was supposed to be transported to the village after her time in quarantine was over, but was transported to a different quarantine facility instead. After the video was posted, Belgian Olympic team officials and the International Olympic Committee had to intervene, and Meylemans was moved to the Athletes Village in Yanqing. Moreover, Dirk Schimmelpfennig, Germany's chef de mission called the hotel accommodations provided for Olympic gold medalist in Nordic Combined Eric Frenzel as “unreasonable".
Food
The food being served at the games was also criticized. During the men's downhill event in alpine skiing, German coach Christian Schweiger said the following, “the catering is extremely questionable. I would have expected that the Olympic Committee is capable of providing hot meals, there are crisps, some nuts and chocolate and nothing else. This shows a lack of focus on high-performance sport”. Also, Russian Olympic Committee biathlete Valeria Vasnetsova posted on social media that she was served the same food for all three meals and posted "My stomach hurts, I’m very pale and I have huge black circles around my eyes". Vasnetsova said she was only able to eat the pasta served as the rest of the food was inedible. The United States delegation brought extra food, such as bags of pasta, anticipating issues with the food at the games. Also, a manager from a restaurant in the 'bubble' for the games admitted the food served there was 'disgusting' and only low quality packaged food items were available at the Main Media Centre. The International Olympic Committee would release a statement acknowledging the issues raised by athletes, "particularly with regard to food temperature, variety and portion size”.
Weather conditions
Other complaints included the weather conditions at the games, with athletes raising complaints about competing in unsafe weather conditions. The Swedish team requested the races be moved to earlier in the day to protect athletes from the cold weather. This was done after athlete Frida Karlsson nearly fainted at the conclusion of the women's skiathlon cross-country race. Some athletes resorted to putting tape on their faces and noses to protect them from the bitter cold.
Team Russia
On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for a period of four years, after the Russian government was found to have tampered with lab data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency being reinstated. As a result of the ban, WADA will allow individually cleared Russian athletes to take part in the 2022 Winter Olympics under a neutral banner, as instigated at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The title of the neutral banner was yet to be determined; WADA Compliance Review Committee head Jonathan Taylor stated that the IOC would not be able to use "Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR) as it did in 2018, emphasizing that neutral athletes cannot be portrayed as representing a specific country.
Russia later filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the WADA decision. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on 17 December 2020, to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.
The IOC announced on 19 February 2021 that Russia would compete in both the 2020 Summer Olympics (which was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2022 Winter Olympics under the acronym "ROC", after the name of the Russian Olympic Committee. However, the name of the committee itself in full could not be used to refer to the delegation. The ROC team would be represented by the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee. On 22 April 2021, the IOC approved a fragment of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 to be used in place of the Russian national anthem.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
Russia was criticised for its troop build-up near the Ukrainian border. There were also calls to remove Russia from the Olympics sports committees.
Environmental and health issues
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes in qualifying for curling and women's ice hockey due to the cancellation of tournaments in 2020. The World Curling Federation proposed that qualification for curling be based on placement in the 2021 world championships and a dedicated qualification tournament to complete the field (in place of points earned across the 2020 and 2021 world championships). The IIHF based its qualification for the women's tournament upon existing IIHF World Rankings, without holding the 2020 Women's World Championship. The Asian Winter Games was also not held before this Olympics, potentially affecting the qualifications for some athletes.
On 23 December 2021, the National Hockey League (NHL) announced it will not be sending players to the Games, citing health and safety concerns, and a need to use the timeframe of the Olympics to make up the large number of games postponed since December 2021 due to Omicron variant.
Insufficient snowfall
During the bidding process, critics questioned the Beijing bid, citing that the proposed outdoor venue sites do not have reliable snowfall in winter for snow sports. Concerns have been raised that snow may need to be transported to the venues at great cost and with uncertain environmental consequences.
Energy crisis
The 2021 global energy crisis has intensified pressures on China ahead of the Winter Olympics. Al-Jazeera reported that "China’s energy crisis is partially of its own making as President Xi Jinping tries to ensure blue skies at the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February and show the international community he’s serious about de-carbonizing the economy."
Impact on Songshan National Nature Reserve
The environmental impact of hosting the Games near Beijing has been questioned. Some of the proposed venues will be adjacent to the Songshan National Nature Reserve and part of the same mountain system, and the environmental impact on the nature reserve of construction, and artificially covering parts of the mountain with snow, is uncertain. The Government of China has responded to these concerns by expanding the nature reserve by 31% of its original size.
Human rights issues
Concerns over China's human rights record have cast a shadow over Beijing's Olympic Games, including a diplomatic boycott over serious human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the country. Rights experts stated that crackdowns on human rights defenders, which can range from closing social media accounts to enforced disappearances, were typical in the lead up to sensitive events in China, where the Chinese Communist Party kept a tight lid on dissent.
Sportswashing
Critics say that the 2022 Winter Olympics is being used by the Chinese government for the purpose of sportswashing, a practice by which a country uses sporting events to distract from human rights abuses or other issues.
In January 2022 Amnesty International warned the international community against participating in China's sportswashing efforts. According to Amnesty "China is hoping for sportswashing gold and it's vital that every effort is made to counteract that." Amnesty also criticized the IOC directly.
Athlete safety
Members of the American congress from both major parties have expressed concerns about athlete safety. Retired Olympic cross-country skier Noah Hoffman has also expressed concerns about athlete safety citing China's human rights record and a lack of concern shown by the IOC.
Athlete's freedom of speech
In January 2022 the Beijing Organizing Committee warned that "Any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment."
Competitors have been warned by Human Rights Watch that speaking out is not tolerated in China and as a result if they speak out about human rights or other issues in China they face significant legal penalties. For their protection the American team has been shielded from question related to human rights.
Uyghur and Tibetan activists have encouraged athletes, sponsors, and other international participants in the games to use the platform to speak out on human rights.
Protests
In November 2021 activists held a 57-hour vigil outside the White House in Washington D.C.
In January 2022 a protest against China's hosting of the games was held in Washington, D.C. outside the Chinese embassy. Attendees included civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng and New Jersey politician Chris Smith. Smith described the 2022 Olympics as the "Genocide Games."
To protest the games and China's human rights record the artist Badiucao created an NFT collection entitled "Beijing 2022 Olympic" which featured works mixing Olympic imagery with human rights messaging.
A number of athletes have stated that they would boycott the Olympics opening ceremony.
On 4 February, a large protest against the games was held in Istanbul. Protesters included members of Turkey's Uyghur diaspora community. Hundreds of people in several countries protested against China's repression of its Uyghur minority and Tibetans.
Propaganda and information operations issues
Propaganda and information operations
The Chinese government's internet troll networks were mobilized before the Games to support government messaging. This has included campaigns of intimidation against human rights activists abroad. The Spamouflage network transitioned to primarily push Olympic messaging in December 2021.
In the run up to the Olympics, the Chinese government deployed dozens of fake Twitter accounts to push the Government's position in the Peng Shuai scandal and the IOC's involvement. The New York Times and ProPublica identified a network of more than 3,000 inauthentic-looking Twitter accounts that appeared to be coordinating. Such accounts appeared to operate solely to amplify state media, as most of these accounts were recently created with very few followers, and their activity consisted solely of reposting China comments including from one account called "Spicy Panda" whose cartoons and videos rallied against the Olympic boycott. A Twitter spokesperson said that hundreds of accounts included in the investigation's findings have since been suspended for violating the "platform manipulation and spam policy," which prohibits "coordinated activity that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts and automation."
For the domestic audience, in what was described as a '“closed loop” of official propaganda, the state carefully [curated] almost anything ordinary Chinese people see or read...[to] the effect [it] has been an Olympics free of scandal or criticism or bad news". For instance, a state media slide show devoted to the men's figure skating competition conspicuously omitted the gold medalist, Nathan Chen of the United States.
Censorship
Domestic Chinese criticism and debate on the potential environmental impacts caused by the Games are censored by the Chinese government on the press and internet. In recent years, censorship has been significantly stepped up. The government has banned, for example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and, since 2019, Wikipedia.
The Citizen Lab report on the My2022 app (see below) discovered a "censorship keywords" list built into the app, and a feature that allows people to flag other "politically sensitive" expressions. The list of words included the names of Chinese leaders and government agencies, as well as references to the 1989 killing of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, and the religious group Falun Gong.
Negative news censored during the games
On 28 January 2022, a few days before the opening ceremony, the Xuzhou chained woman incident was exposed on Chinese social media. Several media figures, including Han Song from the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency argued that people should be more concerned about the incident than the Winter Olympics. However, to avoid any negative news that could divert the public's attention from the Olympics, Chinese news media outlets were order by authorities to avoid reporting such cases, with many social media posts related to the incident censored. Some people who tried to dig into the story by investigating the case in Feng County were even detained by the police.
Alleged suspension of US athlete's Twitter account
US athlete Aaron Blunck alleged that he was suspended by Twitter after he praised the 2022 Beijing Olympics. He reposted a fan's comment that read: "Aaron Blunck [is] out here telling the truth and getting punished by his own government." He later also shared a commentator's tweet accusing the US government of causing his account to be shut down: "Twitter has executed the order of the Western ruling cabals... Punishment comes pretty fast." In his Instagram post, he tagged Twitter and asked: "What'd I do?"
However, it was revealed that the account had been suspended in September the previous year, over five months prior to the games. Twitter responded to the allegations saying that the account had been suspended in error and had since been recovered.
Espionage directed at athletes
China's espionage of athletes serves its political interests as well as addresses safety and COVID concerns. The smartphone app associated with the games, My2022, has been a particular subject of espionage concern.
All attendees to the Games, including athletes, audience members, and media, are required to use the My2022 app purportedly for daily Covid monitoring. The cybersecurity group Citizen Lab, a research institute at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, warned that the My2022 app fails to provide encryption on many of its files, and has security weaknesses that leave users exposed to data breaches. The Citizen Lab disclosed the concerns about the app on 3 December 2021, giving the organizing 15 days to respond and 45 days to fix the issues. A new iOS version of MY2022 was released on 6 January 2022, which failed to fix these problems, while adding a new "Green Health Code", feature that collects more medical data and also lacks SSL certificate validation making it vulnerable to attacks.
Numerous Olympic committees, including the British Olympic Association, the Australian Olympic Committee, Canadian Olympic Committee, NOC*NSF, and United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, have recommended that attendees use burner phones, virtual private networks (VPNs), and create email accounts for their time in China, while leaving personal smartphones and laptops at home.
Cyber security firm Internet 2.0 has also warned of potential security risks during the Olympics, when it examined the technology sponsors of the Games and their products that show "the sophisticated and broad surveillance culture that exists in China". Internet 2.0 noted that "China's national data security laws are not designed with the Western values of privacy and liberty and do not offer the same level of protection" as the laws allow the government to request access to the user data captured by these products.
Sjoerd den Daas incident
On 4 February 2022, a Chinese security guard dragged Dutch journalist Sjoerd den Daas away from his camera during a live broadcast. This forced den Daas to interrupt his broadcast. He was not harmed and was able to resume his broadcast elsewhere a few minutes later. It was not immediately clear why Chinese officials decided to forcibly move den Daas in the middle of his broadcast.
The IOC described the guard as "overzealous". The IOC's spokesperson said "These things do happen and I think it's a one-off. I hope it's a one-off and we will assure you that within the closed loop you will be able to carry on your work." den Daas criticized the IOC for portraying what had happened as an "isolated incident".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2022-02-06|title=Beijing Olympics: Dutch journalist interrupted on-air by Chinese official, IOC says 'one-off|url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/beijing-olympics-dutch-journalist-interrupted-on-air-by-chinese-official-ioc-says-oneoff-101644119785006.html|access-date=2022-02-21|website=Hindustan Times|language=en}}</ref> Yan Jiarong, spokeswoman for the Beijing Olympics, said "we welcome all the international media" and will protect their legal rights. According to his employer, the Dutch broadcaster NOS, the situation "is increasingly becoming a daily reality for journalists in China".
Olympic torch relay
The choice to have Qi Fabao, a People's Liberation Army commander who participated in the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes, be a torchbearer has been controversial in India. As a result, India joined the diplomatic boycott of the games.
Amid human rights scrutiny, China chose a Uyghur athlete to help deliver the Olympic flame. For the final torch lighting, the Olympic flame was placed inside a giant snowflake in the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium by two athletes, Uyghur cross-country skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang from Xinjiang and Nordic combined competitor Zhao Jiawen.
Hanbok row
During the opening ceremony and the parade representing 56 ethnic groups of China, one of the performers, reportedly representing the Korean Chinese ethnic minorities, was wearing a Hanbok.
The display of Hanbok itself has drawn criticism and anger among some South Korean politicians and public, accusing China of claiming the country's traditional clothes.
Lee So-young MP of The ruling Democratic Party of Korea said he regretted seeing the use of Hanbok during the ceremony. Presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung referred to it as cultural appropriation.
The opposition People Power Party also voiced its condemnation calling the move as "rude act" and urge Moon Jae-in government to act tough on China.
Hwang Hee, the South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, attended the ceremony while also dressed in a hanbok.
However, some South Koreans saw the hanbok-wearing woman as a representation of the estimated 2 million ethnic Koreans living in China, and felt the reactions were unnecessary.
Accidents
Accidents attributed to organizational error of the Beijing Olympics:
During training on the Olympic track in November 2021, Mateusz Sochowicz encountered an unexpected closed gate, despite giving a green light, in the middle of the luge's lane. He broke his legs.
Taiwan Government Athlete Investigation
In early 2022, Huang Yu-Ting garnered much controversy after a video that she posted on 23 January, went viral of her wearing an outfit labeled "China" during practice, and she was later criticised heavily by Taiwanese netizens, especially those with pan-green political views, who had flooded her Facebook and Instagram account with hate comments. In response, Huang claimed on Instagram that the outfit was a gift from an athlete who was on the Chinese team, whom she befriended in Germany. She also posted a Taylor Swift music video, "Shake It Off," which is famed for its lyrics, "Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate," and she wrote alongside the video, "My dear haters, this song is for you."
Huang later removed the video post of her wearing the outfit, due to the social media backlash that came afterwards. According to a translation by the South China Morning Post'', Huang separately made a post on Facebook where she wrote, "Thank you to everyone who cheered me up...I have removed the video due to too many unnecessary private messages!..."Sport is sport and in the world of sports, we do not differentiate between nationalities. After the Games, we all are good friends."
Ho Chih-wei, a Legislative Yuan member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) criticised Huang Yu-Ting, calling her "brainless" and demanding that she "shut up", as well as supporting a law that would punish athletes such as Huang with bans from sport events. Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang from the ruling DPP called for an investigation and punishment for Huang.
Sporting controversies
By the end of the Beijing Olympics, a total five athletes were reported for doping violations.
Mixed team ski jumping normal hill event
During the mixed team normal hill event of ski jumping, the previous Olympic medalists, Daniela Iraschko-Stolz of Austria, Katharina Althaus of Germany, and Sara Takanashi of Japan, as well as the former world championship medalists Anna Odine Stroem and Silje Opseth of Norway were all disqualified prior to the start due to the concern that their jumpsuits were not tight enough. According to the officials at the event, jumpsuits had to fit tight enough to not yield the advantage over air, which was part of the newly updated International Ski Federation (FIS) regulations. The Japanese, Austrian, Norwegian, and German teams all suffered the heavy impact as their disqualified athletes automatically received 0 point for failing to make an attempt, which placed the four teams in fourth, fifth, eight, and ninth place respectively, while the Russian and Canadian teams capitalized on that and won silver and bronze medals respectively.
After the game, Althaus expressed her dissatisfaction with the disqualification, emphasizing that she wore the same jumpsuit which was approved for the individual normal hill event that took place two days before. Clas Brede Bråthen, the former ski jumper and manager of the Norwegian team who had the two team members disqualified, also raised the complaint, claiming the event as one of the sport's darker days. Bråthen added that "this is something we should have cleaned up in before the Olympics". After her disqualification, Opseth also said "I am just shocked. I do not understand anything about what happened today". Takanashi deeply apologized for her suit violation as the Japanese team could have been in the medal zone if it was not for her disqualification. After the controversy, Aga Baczkowska from FIS told the Norway's media NRK that the inspections at the event followed the new regulation. Baczkowska stated that it was the responsibility of the participating athletes to ensure that their jumpsuits were in compliance.
Mixed team 2000 metre short-track speed-skating event
In the semi final heat of the 2000 metre mixed team relay in short-track speed-skating, the United States was disqualified after narrowly finishing in the second place behind Hungary. This allowed the Chinese team, who came in third, to claim the second place and advance to the finals to eventually win the gold medal. According to the officials at the event, the team was disqualified for causing the "interference inside the track with skaters coming in to take an exchange" upon the replay review. Ryan Pivirotto, the skater who was identified as the cause of the penalty, stated "The call came to me, on what I did. I don't even know really what I did, because there was no contact". Maame Biney, who was representing the United States in the Olympics but did not participate in the relay, found the decision to be an "interesting call". Andrew Heo, another member of the relay team, said "Obviously things didn't work out, but I think we believe that we belonged there. And I think we could've done really well in the final".
Men's 1000 metre short-track speedskating event
During the Heat 1 of the semi-finals in the men's 1000 metres short track speedskating event, Hwang Dae-heon of South Korea was disqualified after finishing first, which was followed in the Heat 2 by his countryman Lee June-seo being disqualified for a lane change that caused contact. As a result of their disqualifications, Li Wenlong and Wu Dajing of China advanced to the Final A race. In the Final A race, Shaolin Sándor Liu from Hungary was disqualified after crossing the finish line first, ultimately resulting in Ren Ziwei and Li Wenlong of China who finished after Liu to be awarded with the gold and silver medal, respectively. After the event, both the South Korean and the Hungarian team filed protests to the International Skating Union.
The International Skating Union (ISU) received and rejected the two protests from Hungary and South Korea on February 7, 2022. The ISU stated that the decisions in regards to any disqualification for rule violations cannot be challenged, adding that their Chief Referee had reviewed the incident with the Video Referee and stood by the final decisions. According to the ISU, Hwang Dae-heon was disqualified for the "illegal late pass causing contact" while the disqualification of Shaolin Sándor Liu was due to a "straight lane change from inside to out causing contact" and an "arm block at the finish". The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee later filed an official appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Women's 500 metre short-track speed-skating event
After the close-up video of the incident surfaced on Reddit, some viewers of the quarter-finals in the women's 500 metres short track speedskating event noticed and accused the Chinese skater Fan Kexin of reaching over the leg of another competitor to flick a track marker at the Canadian skater Alyson Charles, which seemingly caused Charles to trip and crash along with Fan during the race. While no call was made on the incident, Charles was advanced to the semi finals after it was assessed that she was impeded by another Canadian skater Florence Brunelle who got disqualified. Fan, who came in third after the crash, failed to advance.
Men's 5000 metres relay short-track speed skating event
During the 5000 metres relay event, also in short track speed skating, in the semifinals of the event, the Chinese team fell with 10 laps to go. This happened at a point in the race where Pascal Dion (from Canada) and a Chinese skater had their skates come into contact. The team was advanced to the A final, with no team disqualified during the race. The Chinese team were advanced, even though they finished last in the race and there was no impeding action on the team.
Men's snowboard slopestyle
In the men's snowboard slopestyle, Canada's Max Parrot had won the gold medal and China's Su Yiming won the silver. However the medal results stirred controversy on social media when BBC commentator Ed Leigh believed the gold medal should have been awarded to Su, and pointed out that Parrot, during his frontside 1440 in his second run, had actually committed a 'cardinal sin' by grabbing his knee instead of the board, and should have been deducted for it, but the judges had apparently failed to spot it. Replays showed him "failing to grab his board and instead clutching around his lower leg, meaning that the maneuver was incomplete and should have been marked down. Leigh wrote in the BBC, "The judges have put execution at such a premium that something like that should have cost him two or three points. So the gold has gone wrong there. ... I think Su Yiming actually took the gold there. This is a mistake on the judges' part."
Moreover, bronze medalist Mark McMorris felt he had the best run of the day, and should have been the gold medalist, "but knowing that I kind of had the run of the day and one of the best rounds of my life and the whole industry knows what happened". Parrot, acknowledged the error and still felt like he deserved the gold medal, "But in the end, it's a judged sport and the fact is I had the most technical run of the day on pretty much every feature". Lead judge for the event, Iztok Sumatic said, "there are so many factors. All I can say, in Max's defence, regarding this specific run, is that it was still an insane run. He killed it, especially on the rails." Ultimately the blame lay with the organiziers, who failed to provide multiple angles of the event. Parrot reviewed the runs by the three medalists and, "he spotted three "little mistakes" during McMorris' turn, and also noted a few errors by Su", while Parrot, "didn't have any mistakes on five of the six features, and on the one jump, I had a bigger mistake".
Men's snowboard halfpipe
Public outrage was sparked by the controversially low judgment of Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano's second run scoring which had made commentators and fans cry "foul" on the judges. Hirano then had to repeat the exceptional performance in his third run, and successfully landing the very "dangerous" triple cork again, this time under greater public scrutiny of the judges, and moving from second place to winning the gold medal.
Men's speed skating 500 metres
In the men's 500 metres speed skating event, a false start was called in the last two heats, one of which included current World Cup champion Laurent Dubreuil. This was questioned by 1992 Winter Olympics Champion Bart Veldkamp, who called it "very suspicious". According to Yetta Claytone of the Taylor Daily Press, due to the false start, Dubreuil had to be more cautious on his start, and his reaction time was slower than the initial start. According to Sportnieuws.nl, a false start would have disrupted the athletes' concentration, and also used up energy. However, Dubreuil believed the false start shouldn't be used as an excuse as it was, "something that's totally possible to overcome and that it shouldn't make a difference".
Figure skating
The medal ceremony for the figure skating team event, originally scheduled for Tuesday, 8 February, was delayed over what International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams described as a situation that required "legal consultation" with the International Skating Union. Several media outlets reported on Wednesday that the issue was over a positive test, held in December 2021, for trimetazidine by the ROC's Kamila Valieva, which was officially confirmed on February 11. The results are pending investigation. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), under suspension from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2015 for its years of serving solely to hide the positive doping results of Russian athletes, cleared Valieva on February 9, a day after the December test results were released, two months after the test. The IOC, WADA, and International Skating Union (ISU) are appealing RUSADA's decision.
On February 14, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that Valieva should be allowed to compete in the women's single event, deciding that preventing her from competing "would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances", though her gold medal in the team event was still under consideration. The favorable decision from the court was made in part due to her age, as minor athletes are subject to different rules than adult athletes. The IOC announced that the medal ceremony would not take place until the investigation is over and there is a concrete decision whether to strip Russia of their medals.
Men's Mass Start
The U.S. speedskater Joey Mantia alleged that the South Korean speedskater Lee Seung-hoon made contact by pulling his arm back, costing him the bronze medal during the Mass Start final. Mantia lost by a 0.002-second margin. According to Mantia, he felt contact and told his coach "He got me" after the race. Mantia recalled "Coming up on him, I thought my blade was in front of his, and then he put his back in front of mine. I don't know if there was contact ... it felt like maybe a little bit, maybe not on purpose, but it happens." Mantia then expressed "I'm pretty biased in that situation, obviously. I want that medal. I felt helike maybe I was "cheated a little bit. I don't think he did it on purpose. It's racing'". When asked if he made the contact with Mantia, Lee said he could not remember since he was flustered during the final moment at the finish line. Mantia and his coaches watched the replay several times, and protested that he had been pulled back at the finish line. However, the team did not expect any changes to the result because the Mass Final is a new event with minimal precedent for rules. The United States team lodged a challenge, but Lee was awarded with the bronze medal.
References
2022 Winter Olympics
2022
Foreign relations of China
Human rights in China
Political controversies in China |
47459767 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riseup | Riseup | Riseup is a volunteer-run collective providing secure email, email lists, a VPN service, online chat, and other online services. This organization was launched by activists in Seattle with borrowed equipment and a few users in 1999 or 2000, and quickly grew to millions of accounts.
As of 2013, Riseup features 6 million subscribers spread across 14,000 lists. Their projects have included the Stop Watching Us campaign against global surveillance disclosures revealed by Edward Snowden.
Products
Riseup provides products to facilitate secure communications, including use of strong encryption, anonymizing services, and minimal data retention, which aimed at individuals and non-profit and activist groups. Riseup's two most popular features are secure, privacy-focused email and mailing list management services.
The email service is available through IMAP, POP3, and a web interface. The web interface is a variant of Roundcube or SquirrelMail.
Riseup VPN does not log the user's IP address, unlike most other VPNs. In 2012, discussing an attack against a Microsoft-developed authentication scheme that makes it trivial to break the encryption used by hundreds of anonymity and security services, Moxie Marlinspike, who unveiled the attack, said VPN services offered by riseup.net, for example, selected a 21-character password on behalf of the user that used a combination of 96 different numbers, symbols, and upper- and lower-case letters to withstand such attacks.
Legal
In 2011 Riseup was said to be the only one of several subpoenaed groups to resist subpoenas related to 2008 Bash Back protests.
In 2014, Riseup Network was one of several claimants against GCHQ in international court. Devin Theriot-Orr of Riseup.net said, "People have a fundamental right to communicate with each other free from pervasive government surveillance. The right to communicate, and the ability to choose to do so secretly, is essential to the open exchange of ideas which is a cornerstone of a free society."
In December 2014, a judge in Spain partially justified prolonging the detention of seven alleged anarchist activists by citing their use of "extreme security measures" such as Riseup email, the judge's act has been criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
In 2014 the Google I/O conference was disrupted by protests. The protest outside was led by Fletes and Erin McElroy from Riseup.net and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.
Warranty canary
In mid-November 2016, an unexplained stealth error appeared in Riseup's warrant canary page, and they did not respond to requests to update the canary, leading some to believe the collective was the target of a gag order. On February 16, 2017, the Riseup collective revealed their failure to update the canary was due to two sealed warrants from the FBI, which made it impossible to legally update their canary. The two sealed warrants concerned a public contact of an international distributed denial-of-service attack extortion ring and an account using ransomware to extort people financially. The decision to release user information has been criticized in the hacker community. The canary has since been updated, but no longer states the absence of gag orders.
References
External links
Official site
Tor onion services
Crypto-anarchism
Privacy organizations
Privacy in the United States
Internet-related activism
Internet privacy organizations |
47482807 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liara%20T%27Soni | Liara T'Soni | Dr. Liara T'Soni is a fictional character in BioWare's Mass Effect franchise, who serves as a party member (or "squadmate") in the original Mass Effect trilogy. She is an asari, a female-appearing species from the planet Thessia who are naturally inclined towards biotics, the ability to "manipulate dark energy and create mass effect fields through the use of electrical impulses from the brain". Within the series, Liara is noted for being the galactic scientific community's foremost expert in the field of Prothean archaeology and technology, specifically evidence concerning the demise of the ancient Protheans, believed by the galactic community to be the pre-eminent civilization in the Milky Way galaxy until their sudden disappearance fifty thousands years before the events of the first Mass Effect.
Liara is voiced by Ali Hillis in the video games. Outside of the trilogy, Liara appears as the protagonist in the Mass Effect: Redemption series, and the fourth issue of Mass Effect: Homeworlds, a comic series with individual issues on each of several Mass Effect 3 squad mates prior to the Reaper invasion. Liara also has cameo appearances in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and in the animated feature film, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, where she is voiced by Jamie Marchi.
Liara has been received positively, with placements on several "top character" critic and fan lists. Various merchandise for the character, as with other of the series' squadmates, has been released. The character was the subject of some controversy in 2007 following the release of the original Mass Effect, with at least one case of government scrutiny over a potentially intimate in-game cutscene between Liara and a female Shepard.
Character overview
Liara is an asari, a species which is perceived to have a feminine appearance by non-asari standards, and which is sometimes described as "all female". Most asari choose to use feminine third-person, singular personal pronouns as an efficient means of conversing with gender binary species on terms they could understand. However, Liara has on at least one occasion responded to perceived gender bias and denied that she is a "woman", claiming that her species has "one" gender. Liara is a possible romantic interest for a male and female Commander Shepard throughout the entire Mass Effect trilogy.
Liara is the estranged child of Matriarch Benezia, a well-respected and powerful asari biotic. She is 106 years old during her first appearance, which is the equivalent to a young adult and within the Maiden stage of asari life. As a "pureblood", a term often used as a cruel insult for children born of two asari, Liara grew up being socially stigmatized by asari society. If Shepard discusses her parentage in the original Mass Effect, Liara would speculate that her parents were possibly embarrassed by the union as the asari believe that for them to improve themselves, they should mate with other species to gain new genetic properties. Mass Effect 3 reveals that Matriarch Aethyta is Liara's other biological parent, making her "one-quarter krogan" on Aethyta's side. Matriarch Aethyta is first encountered in Mass Effect 2 as a bartender in Illium, where Liara was based as an information broker. She later moves on to tend a bar at the Presidium in Mass Effect 3, where she is revealed to have been spying on her all along.
While she is legally age of majority under Citadel law, her research is not taken seriously by other asari who consider her to be too young to be academically reputable. In spite of her culturally young age, she is depicted in the series as a child prodigy, possessing the skills and experience of a computer scientist, xenoarchaeologist, philologist, and cryptanalyst that far exceed her developmental age.
Concept and design
Unlike other alien characters made for the game, Liara's face did not have a specific design; her face was taken from the original concepts of the asari, who are conceived as "beautiful, blue aliens" to add a familiar science fiction element to the series. Instead of facepaint which is often used by the design team to diversify asari characters, Liara's facial design incorporates blue-colored freckles. The asari's human-like faces helped the designers in making the characters distinct; face and/or body scans of professional models have been used as the basis for their facial features. American actress Jillian Murray provided her likeness for Liara's final design.
Liara's default appearance in the first Mass Effect is a green medical uniform, while her outfit from the Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC pack was retained as her default appearance for Mass Effect 3. The white jacket is a reminder of her background in science, while the more armor-like pieces serves a reminder to the player that the galaxy is at war, and that civilians are part of the war effort where they have to arm and defend themselves.
As part of BioWare's efforts to create a more realistic aesthetic when remastering the original trilogy for Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Liara's character model from the first Mass Effect underwent some changes: in Legendary Edition, the texturization of her face is better defined with the application of graphical tweaks and lighting adjustments. This is intended to accurately reflect the story canon of her personality, having transitioned from a "doe-eyed" character to a confident and powerful information broker over the course of the original trilogy. Legendary Edition environment and character director Kevin Meek explained in an interview that the team took precaution with their creative decisions for the remaster and tried not to alter how she fundamentally looks in the first game by augmenting her body style or outfit of choice, as they had to "live within the rails of what narratively was her art".
Portrayal
Liara T'Soni was Ali Hillis' first voice acting role for a video game. When she first began voicing Liara, she only had a still drawing of Liara to refer to; Hillis was unfamiliar with voicing video game characters nor did she expect much out of the character. To prepare for the role, particularly for a complicated character like Liara, she would try to "find an essence, a simplicity of a character". She credited voice director Ginny McSwain for guiding her through the entire process by explaining to her Liara's background, who she was and the different layers of her personality.
Hillis interpreted her core personality to be a inquisitive and observant scientist who is always learning everything that she could, and is deeply emotional, childlike, and reactionary in the way she goes about things. She noted that everything in Liara's life, especially in her relationships before she "started to evolve" after the first game, is akin to a coming-of-age discovery for the character. Hillis envisioned Liara to be so pure, that she lack the capacity to be mean-spirited or self-serving in any way.
Appearances
In video games
Mass Effect
Following the exposure of Benezia's involvement with the disgraced Spectre Saren Arterius and their search for an artifact known as the Conduit, Shepard is given a lead to search for Liara and discover what she knows. Liara pleads with Shepard for help when they encounter her in Therum, offering to explain her circumstances and means to be freed. If Shepard pursues other leads first and significantly delays rescuing Liara, she mistakes her rescuers for figments of her own imagination, and decides to humors her "hallucinations" by answering their questions. She only realizes Shepard's squad are real when they reappear to release her.
On her first debriefing aboard the Normandy, Liara shares her theory of cyclical extinction: the Protheans were just the latest in a long line of civilizations to reach a violent end after reaching their apex. Liara notes that there is remarkably little evidence of the Protheans' existence, and speculates that their final fate has been deliberately covered up. As Shepard obtains fragmented visions from various sources during the hunt for Saren and his agents, Liara offers her melding abilities to try and make sense of the data. She constantly exhausts herself after each encounter, prompting frequent suggestions to report to Dr. Chakwas, but collects herself together long enough to explain what she saw. Once Shepard obtains the Cipher, the Mu Relay's location, and the distress call from the Prothean Beacon on Virmire, Liara finally recognizes enough clues to deduce the lost planet of Ilos as the Conduit's true location.
Mass Effect 2
Liara's role in the original trilogy is reduced in Mass Effect 2, set two years after the first game. Liara has become an information broker on Illium in direct rivalry to the Shadow Broker. She is initially presented with an apparently changed personality due to her experience working as a black market information dealer in the two years since Mass Effect; having improved her biotic abilities, she also uses threats and other intimidation tactics to extort information, mimicking Benezia's demeanor and speech tactics when confronting others. After speaking to her, the player may discover that her seemingly darker personality is nothing more than a facade. Liara explains that Shepard's body was recovered by the Shadow Broker, who was prepared to sell it to the Collectors during the events of Mass Effect: Redemption, but was thwarted by her and her drell associate Feron. Liara declines Shepard's offer to join the suicide mission to rescue human colonists in order to continue her vendetta against the Shadow Broker and save Feron, who was captured while she successfully escaped with Shepard's body.
Liara accompanies Shepard temporarily in the Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker if the player decides to help her hunt down the Shadow Broker. Shepard gradually breaks her hardened shell after lecturing her about recklessly behavior in battle, but at the same time she states that she won't stop "to enjoy the scenery" until she's done. After the Shadow Broker is killed, Liara takes the opportunity to usurp his now vacant role. She says she will use her position and resources to help assist Shepard's ongoing mission to fight the Reapers. It is also possible to resume the player character's romance arc with Liara at the end of "Lair of the Shadow Broker".
Mass Effect 3
Liara returns in Mass Effect 3 as a permanent member of Shepard's squad. Liara becomes the Shadow Broker regardless of whether the player imports a Mass Effect 2 saved game where Lair of the Shadow Broker was completed; if not, she tells Shepard that she took on the Shadow Broker with dozens of hired mercenaries, but Feron died in the process. If Shepard assisted her in taking out the Shadow Broker, she mentions that during the time that Shepard was in Alliance custody, Cerberus managed to track down the Shadow Broker's ship. Liara and Feron loaded as much equipment as they could onto a shuttle as possible, then remotely sent the aging ship crashing into a pursuing Cerberus cruiser, resulting in the destruction of both ships. Liara notes that she has retained the crucial part of the Broker's operation, the galaxy-wide spy network. Liara's familiarity with Prothean artifacts as well as asari culture and history, along with the significant resources at her disposal as the Shadow Broker, positions the character in a pivotal role within Mass Effect 3's narrative, where she often provides additional dialogue for plot exposition purposes if she is included in the party during certain missions.
Following the events of Mass Effect 2: Arrival, Admiral Hackett commissioned for Liara's aid to find a solution and prepare the galaxy for the Reapers' imminent arrival. Through a process of elimination, mixed with desperation, she discovered plans for a "Prothean superweapon" on Mars. By this point, the Reaper invasion has reached Earth, and she is pursued by Cerberus forces. During the war, Liara records a collection of intel on the Reapers and her current cycle, as well as the complete history of the contemporary species of her time and their accumulated knowledge of how to fight the Reapers. She stores the information within Glyph, her VI drone assistant, and stashes it away as a time capsule. The time capsule represents a contingency plan if the allied races of her time are not able to defeat the Reapers in this cycle and are wiped out, ensuring the next cycle will have a better opportunity to prepare for the Reapers' arrival, and a complete set of plans to start out from.
If the Mass Effect 3: From Ashes DLC pack is installed and the Prothean endling Javik is recruited as a squad member, she is initially overjoyed to have one serving aboard the Normandy, but slowly becomes disillusioned; she admitted that she had previously imagined the Protheans as the "keepers of wisdom and enlightenment" of their era, only to find them to be "cold and ruthless warlords". Eventually, her relationship with Javik reaches a breaking point after the fall of Thessia; Liara confronts Javik at his quarters and vents her frustration at him for "not having the answers". If Shepard intervenes to defuse the situation instead of allowing Liara to walk away, the two will begin to respect and appreciate each other.
During the main narrative of the Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC pack, Liara calls in a favor to find information on the gun found by Shepard after they are attacked by an unknown mercenary group during the crew's shore leave. She will later participate in the raid on the Citadel Archives with the rest of Shepard's crew to pursue the instigators behind the group's attack. The DLC also adds a number of character moments for the character, such as her piano playing, and her friendly rivalry with James Vega through debates and card games during the big party.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Liara T'Soni makes a minor appearance in Mass Effect: Andromeda, in the form of voice messages sent to Alec Ryder in his quarters aboard the Hyperion. Pathfinder Ryder can unlock and listen to Liara's voice messages, which were originally sent in 2182, a year before her encounter with Shepard, where she discussed her research into the Protheans and their lost empire. Eventually, Ryder will unlock a message by Liara from 2186, sent to Alec while he was in stasis on the Hyperion traveling to Andromeda, informing him that the Reapers have arrived. She mentions the Crucible but warns Alec to expect the worst, and asks him and his children to not forget the people they left behind.
In other media
Mass Effect: Redemption
The narrative in Redemption begins in the aftermath of the destruction of the SSV Normandy as depicted during the opening gameplay sequence of Mass Effect 2. Liara T'Soni attempts to find and retrieve the dead body of Commander Shepard and give it to Cerberus so they could bring Shepard back to life. She soon discovers that the Shadow Broker, represented by his salarian agent Tazzik, has acquired Shepard's remains and wants to turn it over to the Collectors. Liara manages to acquire Shepard's body with Feron's help. Liara knew that Cerberus may use Shepard's body for their own purposes, but still gave them Shepard's body as she cares for Shepard.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost
Liara appears as a minor character in the animated feature film Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. This marks the only instance where Ali Hillis did not reprise her role as the character.
Mass Effect: Homeworlds
Liara is the protagonist of the fourth issue of Mass Effect: Homeworlds, which takes place after the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. As the new Shadow Broker, Liara desperately searches for a way to stop the Reapers. Journeying to Thessia to examine the Prothean archives there, she is disappointed to learn how little they contain. A former colleague recommends investigating Kahje since its Prothean ruins are much more vast. Once there, Liara persuades a hanar official to allow her to visit a submerged Prothean site that had become a hanar shrine. A drell named Quoyle takes her to the shrine, but on arrival the shrine launches torpedoes at Quoyle's craft; a Cerberus Phantom had killed the shrine's staff and activated the defenses. When the craft is hit, Liara uses her biotics to keep it from flooding while Quoyle guides it to the dock.
At the shrine, Liara encounters and kills the Phantom, using her biotics to slam a piece of debris through the Phantom's skull. Quoyle is wounded, but not mortally and tells Liara to go on to the archives. There, Liara discovers a promising lead in the form of encryption keys for other Prothean archives, but is interrupted by the Illusive Man. He insists that the Phantom is not his doing, blaming the attack on a rogue faction within Cerberus and proposes that they form an alliance against the Reapers. Liara agrees that to pool her resources with Cerberus's against the Reapers might be a mutually beneficial move, but she insists that he upload his information first. When the Illusive Man remains silent, Liara opines that either he wants to keep the information he has to himself, or that he doesn't have any information in the first place.
As Liara goes to leave, the Illusive Man insinuates that she doesn't have what it takes to be the Shadow Broker, claiming that his black market contacts think the Broker has become soft, weak and vulnerable to usurpation, insisting she needs his help; Liara retorts that he is the one trying to make a deal, advises him to send an army the next time he tries to kill her and leaves. As she helps Quoyle to the shrine's shuttle bay, she informs Admiral Hackett of her possible lead and asks for access to a top-secret facility on Mars.
Promotion and merchandise
Like Shepard's other squad members, merchandise was made of Liara T'Soni. A bishoujo figure of her was released by Kotobukiya in May 2012. BioWare initially released preview images of the figure in September 2011, and later reduced the surface area around the breasts from the initial design following fan feedback. Other notable merchandise include a Liara mimobot flash sold by BioWare's store, and a figure of Liara released by Gaming Heads in early 2015.
To commemorate the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition in May 2021, Liara's likeness is used as part of a series of limited edition statues to be released in mid-2021.
Cultural impact
Reception
Liara T'Soni has been well received by players and video game journalists since the inception of the Mass Effect franchise, and
the potential romance with her has also been of some interest. GamesRadar's Jordan Baughman cited Liara's characterization in the first game as an example of BioWare's "The Awkward Hottie" character archetype, specifically a "naive beauty who doesn’t truly understand how harsh the world/universe can be" and who "turns into an absolute mess when placed in social settings". In a 2007 article written for GameSetWatch, Chris Dahlen explained that while he found Mass Effect disappointing, particularly the lacklustre characterization of its non playable characters, he noted that Liara was the "less obnoxious" of the available romance options and her explanations about the asari species to be well articulated. Pri Sanchay from Hardcore Gaming 101 noted that Liara's role as an alien love interest is similar to Star Control II's Talana, a member of the Syreen species which also inspire the concept behind the asari; the difference is that Mass Effect treats interspecies romance with "sincere complexity", whereas Star Control II lampoons the alien sex trope.
Following the release of Mass Effect 3, various media outlets have identified Liara as one of the best characters from the original Mass Effect trilogy in various character lists. Daniel Nye Griffiths from Forbes argued that Liara is the real hero of the Mass Effect series as she played an important role throughout the original trilogy with assisting Shepard's struggle against the Reapers and their indoctrinated servants, noting that the time capsule Liara has prepared may still play a pivotal role in preparing future Milky Way races for the Reapers' threat if the organic races of their cycle are ultimately extinguished. In a 2016 article, PC Gamer staff ranked Liara the fourth best companion of the Mass Effect series and lauded the character's "killer story arc", her role in "providing counterbalancing compassion to Shepard’s necessary cynicism", and giving the Mass Effect series heart "without it having to be constantly bleeding".
Liara remained a fan favorite after the conclusion of the Mass Effect trilogy, and is one of the more popular characters in the series, particularly for fan art and cosplay activities. A reader's poll published by IGN in December 2014 for their top ultimate RPG party choices placed Liara at #15 under the reserves section. Another reader's poll published by PC Gamer in 2015 reveal that Liara was overall the fourth most popular Mass Effect character, and the most popular love interest for Shepard. Player statistics published by Guinness World Records revealed that Liara T'Soni was the most popular Mass Effect 3 squad member with 24.1% of the votes, as well as the overall most popular romance option among respondents with 29% of the vote. Tim Clark from PC Gamer considered Liara to be his personal favorite Bioware companion, as did Aidan Simonds from Playstation Lifestyle. Clark commented that "it's testament to the skill of BioWare's writers that she isn't reduced to just being the drippy, peace-loving, science-y one. I mean, she's all those things, but she's also more complex", and claimed that the character motivated him "to be a better Shepard". Mike Fahey from Kotaku praised Liara's freckles as a design choice, saying it gives the character "a life I wouldn't normally expect from an alien creature in a brand-spanking new science fiction universe." Jess McDonell from Gamespot picked Liara as her ideal real-life date.
In a retrospective examination of Liara's story arc in the trilogy, Simmonds said Liara's well rounded characterization is a good example of a character who benefits from a consistent narrative through the original trilogy. Lee Hutchinson from Ars Technica reflected on the various romance options and subplots integrated throughout the trilogy, and concluded that BioWare designed Mass Effect 3 with Liara "as the canonical romance choice—you run into her first, and she’s with you the longest, and she has tons of dialog and is one of the more complete bedroom scenes near the end". Stacey Henley from VG247 noted that the culmination of Liara's character arc sees her "doe-eyed, schoolgirl naivety hardened into something steelier" by the events of Mass Effect 3. Liana Ruppert from Game Informer felt that the metamorphosis of her personality throughout the trilogy was never visualized in any meaningful way other than a change in her default outfit as well as her voiced lines. Within that context, Ruppert felt that the graphical changes and improvements introduced by Legendary Edition finally reflects her complexity and gives the character "even more life than she had before".
Portrayal as a queer character
Liara T'Soni is seen by some sources as a notable example of the consistently positive portrayal of LGBT characters in the Mass Effect series, and by extension an important representation of LGBT characters in video games due to her potential romance with a female player character which is coded as lesbianism. The Advocate, Gay Community News and the gay social network app Hornet considered Liara to be one of the best or greatest queer video games characters of all time. Conversely, Grace Benfell scrutinized Liara's potential same-sex relationship with Shepard, "one that can be immediately exchanged for a normative straight relationship", and observed that it is the "only kind of queerness" recognized by the franchise's narrative when contrasting her story arc with that of another pureblood asari character, Morinth.
A cutscene from the original Mass Effect containing depictions of partial nudity and sexual activity between Liara and Shepard, particularly if the latter is female, was notable for attracting controversy. The game was initially banned in Singapore, which led to an outcry amongst the local and international gaming community. Censors in the country specifically blamed the lesbian encounter between a female alien (Liara) and a female Shepard as the main reason why the game was subjected to the ban. The ban was lifted after Mass Effect was issued with a M18 rating soon afterwards.
Further reading
References
External links
Extraterrestrial characters in video games
Fictional archaeologists
Fictional female scientists
Fictional computer scientists
Fictional consultants
Fictional information brokers
Fictional philologists
Fictional people in information technology
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional spymasters
Fictional xenologists
LGBT characters in video games
Mass Effect characters
Video game characters introduced in 2007
Video game sidekicks
Female characters in video games |
47488027 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike%20Belshe | Mike Belshe | Mike Belshe (born 1971) is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He‘s a co-founder and CEO of BitGo, Inc. and a cofounder of Lookout Software in 2004. He is the co-inventor of the SPDY protocol and one of the principal authors of the HTTP/2.0 specification.
Belshe received his bachelor's degree in computer science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Belshe started his career at Hewlett Packard, followed by Silicon Valley startup Netscape Communications Corp., where he worked on the Netscape Enterprise Server. After Netscape he joined Good Technology before co-founding Lookout Software with Eric Hahn. In 2006, he joined Google, was one of the first engineers on the Google Chrome team, and was part of the Google Chrome Comic. As part of the Chrome team he worked on protocol research, and later co-founded the SPDY protocol. He submitted SPDY to the IETF in 2011, and was an author of HTTP/2. As part of the IETF standardization effort, Belshe argued for encryption by default within the protocol.
References
Living people
1961 births
American computer businesspeople
People associated with Bitcoin |
47499299 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDIV | HDIV | HDIV is a Web Application Security Framework that controls the information flow between the server and the client avoiding many of the most important web risks. HDIV extends web applications behaviour by adding security functionalities, maintaining the API and the framework specification. This implies that HDIV may be used in applications developed in Spring MVC, Grails, JSTL, Struts 1, Struts 2, JavaServer Faces, Symfony in a transparent way to the programmer and without adding any complexity to the application development.
OWASP Top 10
A1 (Injection) : Injection flaws, such as SQL Injection occur when malicious data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker's malicious data tricks the interpreter into executing unintended commands and may be used to create, modify,access and delete data without proper authorization. Hdiv minimizes the existence of these vulnerabilities thanks to the web information flow control system that avoids injection vulnerabilities. This architecture minimizes the risk to just the new data generated legally from editable form elements. It is important to note that even if using prepared statements, as long as the query is based on untrusted data generated previously at server side (for instance the identification ID of an item within a list) it is possible to exploit an SQL injection risk. Hdiv also implements an internal system that detects SQL Injection risks within source-code.
A2 (Broken authentication and session management) : Application functions related to authentication and session management are often not implemented correctly. This allows attackers to compromise passwords, keys, session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws and assume other users’ identities. Hdiv does not create a parallel authentication system delegating this responsibility to application servers.
A3 (XSS) : XSS flaws occur whenever an application takes untrusted data and sends it to a web browser without proper validation or escaping. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim's browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Hdiv minimizes the existence of untrusted data thanks to the web information flow control system implement by Hdiv, minimizing the risk to the new data generated legally from editable form elements. In addition to that Hdiv implements an internal system that detects XSS risks within source-code.
A4 (Insecure direct object reference) : A direct object reference occurs when a developer exposes a reference to an internal implementation object, such as a file, directory, or database key. Without an access control check or other protection, attackers can manipulate these references to access unauthorized data. The source of the problem of this risk is based on the manipulation or updating of the data generated previously at server side. For instance a list is sent to the client with an ID for each item. The client manipulated the ID and try to access to a forbidden id. Hdiv web information flow control system control all the data generated at server side ensuring the integrity of the data generated at serve side. In addition to that and optionally is possible to ensure the confidentiality of the data generated at server side avoiding the exposition of critical (such as credit cards, etc.).
A5 (security misconfiguration) : Good security requires having a secure configuration defined and deployed for the application, frameworks, application server, web server, database server, and platform. Secure settings should be defined, implemented, and maintained, as defaults are often insecure. Additionally, software should be kept up to date. Current application security architectures does not follow security by default approach, on the contrary, the programmers must apply security configuration to avoid the access to private or confidential resources. Thanks to the information flow control system implemented by Hdiv all the resources (links and forms) exposed by the application are controlled by Hdiv and doesn't allow to break the original contract offered by the server. In other words, even when the programmer doesn't use access control systems or ACL (Java EE or Spring Security) Hdiv is able to know which resource is accessible by each user.
A6 (Sensitive data exposure) : Many web applications do not properly protect sensitive data, such as credit cards, tax IDs, and authentication credentials. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data deserves extra protection such as encryption at rest or in transit, as well as special precautions when exchanged with the browser. Hdiv offers a confidentially property to all data generated at server side. That is to say, Hdiv replace original parameter values generated at server side by relative values (0,1,2,4, etc.) that avoid exposing critical data to the client side.
A7 (Missing function level access control) : Most web applications verify function level access rights before making that functionality visible in the UI. However, applications need to perform the same access control checks on the server when each function is accessed. If requests are not verified, attackers will be able to forge requests in order to access functionality without proper authorization. Current application security architectures doesn't follow security by default approach, on the contrary, the programmers must apply security controls to avoid the access to private or confidential resources. Thanks to the information flow control system implemented by Hdiv all the resources (links and forms) exposed by the application are controlled by Hdiv and does not allow breaking the original contract offered by the server. In other words, even when the programmer doesn't use access control systems or ACL (Java EE or Spring Security) Hdiv is able to know which resource is accessible by each user.
A8 (CSRF) : A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim's browser to send a forged HTTP request, including the victim's session cookie and any other automatically included authentication information, to a vulnerable web application. This allows the attacker to force the victim's browser to generate requests the vulnerable application thinks are legitimate requests from the victim. Hdiv adds random tokens to each link or form existing within the application. It makes extremely difficult to implement an CSRF attack because the attacker does not know which is the value. In order to offer an extreme security level Hdiv does not use a random token per session and creates a new token for each requested page. Even the token used by links and forms within the same page are different avoiding the reuse of link tokens to exploit a web form. One token is created for data retrieval requests (GET, HEAD, TRACE and OPTIONS HTTP methods) and another for data modification (POST, PATCH, PUT and DELETE methods).
A9 (using components with known vulnerabilities) : Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, almost always run with full privileges. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable a range of possible attacks and impacts. Although Hdiv can't update the base software of web applications and is advisable to update the software versions to the latest, the web information flow control system implemented by Hdiv avoid and makes more difficult to exploit many or known and unknown of the vulnerabilities of base software. In other words, in many cases (see: Struts cancel vulnerability), the risks are based on an unexpected use of a web application. Hdiv doesn't allow to break the original contract and thanks to this property it is more difficult to exploit existing risks.
A10 (Unvalidated redirects and forwards) : Web applications frequently redirect and forward users to other pages and websites, and use untrusted data to determine the destination pages. Without proper validation, attackers can redirect victims to phishing or malware sites, or use forwards to access unauthorized pages. This vulnerability is mainly related with the manipulation of readonly data or data generated previously at server side. Hdiv controls all the data server by the server and does not allow the redirection to malicious web sites.
See also
Application security
OWASP
Resources
Securing Grails Applications by Burt Beckwith (SpringSource)
Spring MVC 3.1 Update & Hdiv Integration by Rossen Stoyanchev (SpringSource)
Spring MVC form validation with Hdiv by Lucky Ryan
References
External links
Official website
Computer security |
47506143 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%20revolt | User revolt | A user revolt is a social conflict in which users of a website collectively and openly protest a website host's or administrator's instructions for using the website. Sometimes it happens that the website hosts can control a website's use in certain ways, but the hosts also depend on the users to comply with voluntary social rules in order for the website to operate as the hosts would like. A user revolt occurs when the website users protest against the voluntary social rules of a website, and use the website in a way that is in conflict with the wishes of the website host or administrators.
A user revolt is a process starting with a triggering event, then a rebellion, then a response to the rebellion.
Distinction from Internet-based activism
Internet-based activism is sometimes called a user revolt when website users protest the terms of a website while using that website for other purposes. A distinction between a user revolt and Internet-based activism could be that in a user revolt, an objective of the protest is to revolt against the website itself. In Internet-based activism, the primary goal of the protest is something other than reforming a website, although websites which create barriers to the larger protest may incidentally experience a user revolt for participating in the larger conflict. An example of a situation in which Internet activism includes a user revolt might be when users wish to engage in prohibited political discussion, but a government compels the website host to censor those discussions. The core conflict in this case is between users and the government, and not that the website itself as a communication medium. However, when the website as a communication medium chooses to create barriers to communication for users, then users of the website organize a user revolt even when the primary objective is something other than a website protest.
Examples of Internet-based activism which led to user revolts include Social media and the Arab Spring and the Twitter Revolution.
Examples
AOL
In 1997 AOL amended their Terms of service to permit them to sell users' telephone numbers to telemarketers. Users complained and in response AOL offered an opt-out system.
Digg
Publishing of DVD unlock code
In 2007 in the AACS encryption key controversy various Internet users began publishing the decryption code for the Advanced Access Content System on various websites. The impact was that the code enabled anyone to write simple software, for example DeCSS, which enabled anyone else to rip DVDs and copy the content as they liked. The release of the key and derivative ripping programs made the illicit distribution of copyrighted media much easier for anyone who wished to share content which was formerly locked by the AACS system.
The AACS codes were published in many places. One place in which they were published was the website Digg.
On May 1, 2007, an article appeared on Digg's homepage that contained the encryption key for the AACS digital rights management protection of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Then Digg, "acting on the advice of its lawyers," removed posting submissions about the secret number from its database and banned several users for submitting it. The removals were seen by many Digg users as a capitulation to corporate interests and an assault on free speech. A statement by Jay Adelson attributed the article's take-down to an attempt to comply with cease and desist letters from the Advanced Access Content System consortium and cited Digg's Terms of Use as justification for taking down the article. Although some users defended Digg's actions, as a whole the community staged a widespread revolt with numerous articles and comments being made using the encryption key. The scope of the user response was so great that one of the Digg users referred to it as a "digital Boston Tea Party". The response was also directly responsible for Digg reversing the policy and stating: "But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."
Digg v4 revolt and migration to Reddit
When Digg redesigned their website in 2010 the community revolted and used the platform to advertise a user migration to competitor Reddit.
Digg's version 4 release was initially unstable. The site was unreachable or unstable for weeks after its launch on August 25, 2010. Many users, upon finally reaching the site, complained about the new design and the removal of many features (such as bury, favorites, friends submissions, upcoming pages, subcategories, videos and history search). Kevin Rose replied to complaints on his blog, promising to fix the algorithm and restore some features.
Alexis Ohanian, founder of rival site Reddit, said in an open letter to Rose:
Disgruntled users declared a "quit Digg day" on August 30, 2010, and used Digg's own auto-submit feature to fill the front page with content from Reddit. Reddit also temporarily added the Digg shovel to their logo to welcome fleeing Digg users.
Digg's traffic dropped significantly after the launch of version 4, and publishers reported a drop in direct referrals from stories on Digg's front page. New CEO Matt Williams attempted to address some of the users' concerns in a blog post on October 12, 2010, promising to reinstate many of the features that had been removed.
Facebook
In 2006 there was a Facebook user revolt regarding privacy concerns with the creation of Facebook's news feed feature. Users worried that the news feed would show their posts to individuals outside their friend network. Facebook staff replied to users.
In 2007, there was a Facebook revolt over the automatic displaying of online purchase data and other online activity in news feeds. In response to the backlash, Facebook rolled back the changes.
In 2009, Facebook users revolt over changes to the terms of service. In response to the backlash, Facebook rolled back the changes.
In 2010 roughly 34,000 users left Facebook over loss of control over privacy settings (users could not opt out of sharing information publicly) as a part of the May 31 "Quit Facebook Day" campaign. Facebook rolled back some of the changes, allowing users to opt out.
In 2018, revelations about election subversion on Facebook in 2016 led to the popular hashtag #DeleteFacebook.
In June 2020, a social media campaign urged advertisers to stop or pause their Facebook advertising campaigns, in response to the company's hands-off approach to moderating content. Major brands including The North Face, REI, Patagonia, and Verizon took up the cause. The NAACP, Color of Change, and the Anti-Defamation League formed a coalition to drive the boycott, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle worked behind the scenes to support the effort.
Instagram
In 2012 a change to Instagram's terms of service triggered a user revolt.
Even during the revolt Instagram continued to get many new users.
Livejournal
Livejournal users revolted in 2007 when Livejournal deleted some site content.
The Pirate Bay
In 2009 Global Gaming Factory X sought to purchase The Pirate Bay. This led to a user revolt when community participants protested that the sale was a betrayal of community values.
Reddit
On July 2, 2015, Reddit began experiencing a series of blackouts as moderators set popular subreddit communities to private, in an event dubbed "AMAgeddon" – a portmanteau of AMA ("ask me anything") and Armageddon. This was done in protest of the recent firing of Victoria Taylor, an administrator who helped organize citizen-led interviews with famous people on the popular "Ask me Anything" subreddit. Organizers of the blackout also expressed resentment about the recent severance of the communication between Reddit and the moderators of subreddits. The blackout intensified on July 3 when former community manager David Croach gave an AMA about being fired. Before deleting his posts, he stated that Ellen Pao dismissed him with one year of health coverage when he had cancer and did not recover quickly enough. Following this, a Change.org petition to remove Pao as CEO of Reddit Inc. reached over 200,000 signatures. Pao posted a response on July 3 as well as an extended version of it on July 6 in which she apologized for bad communication and not delivering on promises. She also apologized on behalf of the other administrators and noted that problems already existed over the past several years. On July 10, Pao resigned as CEO and was replaced by former CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman.
Twitter
In 2013 Twitter users organized a revolt when Twitter took away a defensive tool that allowed people to protect themselves from other users that they chose to block. In response to the revolt Twitter restored some rights to its users.
Wikipedia
Spanish fork
The Enciclopedia Libre was founded by contributors to the Spanish-language Wikipedia who decided to start an independent project. Led by Edgar Enyedy, they left Wikipedia on 26 February 2002, and created the new website, hosted free by the University of Seville, with the freely licensed articles of the Spanish-language Wikipedia. The split was provoked over concern that Wikipedia would accept advertising. After Wikipedia made a commitment to not use advertising, the Spanish fork attracted no more attention, and was mostly abandoned within a year of its founding.
VisualEditor
In 2012 The Daily Dot suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation's pursuit of more users may be at the risk of alienating the existing editors. Some experienced editors have expressed concerns about the rollout and bugs, with the German Wikipedia community voting overwhelmingly against making the VisualEditor the new default, and expressing a preference for making it an "opt-in" feature instead. Despite these complaints, the Wikimedia Foundation continued with the rollout to other languages. The Register said, "Our brief exploration suggests it certainly removes any need to so much as remember what kind of parenthesis belongs where." The Economists L.M., said it is "the most significant change in Wikipedia's short history." Softpedia ran an article titled "Wikipedia's New VisualEditor Is the Best Update in Years and You Can Make It Better". Some opponents have said that users may feel belittled by the implication that "certain people" are confused by wiki markup and therefore need the VisualEditor.
The Daily Dot reported on 24 September 2013 that the Wikimedia Foundation had experienced a mounting backlash from the English Wikipedia community, which criticised the VisualEditor as slow, poorly implemented and prone to break articles' existing text formatting. In the resulting "test of wills" between the community and the Foundation, a single volunteer administrator overrode the Wikimedia Foundation's settings to change the availability of VisualEditor from opt-out to opt-in. The Foundation acquiesced, but vowed to continue developing and improving the VisualEditor.
Superprotect
"Superprotect" was the name for a superuser tool granted to Wikimedia Foundation staff but denied to all Wikimedia community members. In 2014 Wikimedia Foundation staff used the tool to force the installation of a new software feature on the German Wikipedia against the wishes of the Wikimedia community, who felt the feature was buggy and not ready for general use. This conflict was unprecedented. Erik Möller, then director of the Wikimedia Foundation, managed the Superprotect tool. Wikimedia commentator Andrew Lih described the superprotect feature as "Orwellian-sounding".
The MediaViewer and Superprotect conflict between the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation was called a revolt. The controversy demonstrated that the Wikimedia Foundation was unable to control the Wikimedia community with technical features, but rather, that mutual understanding and discussion among stakeholders would be required to develop Wikipedia's software.
Representative dismissals
Wikimedia users organized a revolt to call for the removal of Arnnon Geshuri, a member of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedia Foundation head Lila Tretikov resigned in February 2016 during a user revolt calling for institutional changes.
Wikimedia Foundation ban of Fram
On 10 June 2019, the English Wikipedia administrator Fram was banned by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) from editing the English Wikipedia for a period of 1 year. According to Joseph Bernstein of Buzzfeed News, this took place "without a trial", and WMF did not "disclose the complainer nor the complaint" to the community. Some in the editor community expressed anger at the WMF not providing specifics, as well as skepticism as to whether Fram deserved the ban. Another administrator unblocked Fram, later citing "overwhelming community support", but the WMF reblocked Fram. Two weeks after the ban of Fram, nine English Wikipedia administrators had resigned.
See also
Web hosting service
References
Internet activism
Labor relations
Nonviolent revolutions |
47549038 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%20Live%20Ink | Orion Live Ink | Orion Live Ink is a digitisation method which uses character recognition technology and question paper rubrics to publish examination results. It is an OWASP Top 10 and CERT-IN Standards certified secure application (certificate number SB/OISPL/#3427).
Development
The solution consists of a digital pen, tablet and a special printed paper used as the top sheet on answer booklets. The digital pen is used by an examiner to write marks on the top sheet. The pen digitizes marks in real time and transfers data to the tablet. The allotted marks is displayed on the tablet in handwritten form as well as digitized format. Once the user validates marks in the tablet, the data is encrypted and transferred to the centralized server of the education board.
Features
The tablet handles question paper rubrics application, marks totalling and captures the date and time of evaluation.
Once the marks are validated, the tablet as well as the digital pen does not contain any residual data.
An OLICR pen and tablet set could be shared by several evaluators at an evaluation camp since the set would be required only at the time of writing the marks on the top sheet, which would take approximately less than a minute per answer script.
Evaluators will continue to check and correct answer sheets using traditional pen and paper method of evaluation. So, there is no additional learning cycle required while using OLICR devices.
Once the marks data is transferred to the central servers, it is immediately available for download in the education board's server.
Board exams and entrance tests
Board examination results is a deciding factor for students who aim to apply in reputed colleges and institutes for further studies. The national and state-level competitive entrance examinations are often held at a date convenient to the respective college or institute organising the examination. One of the criteria to apply for these examinations is the board examination results. So, students wait for their tenth or twelfth board examination results to enable them to apply for entrance examinations. To make schools relevant to changing trends, school education boards and councils have started adopting new technology and methods to enable faster and accurate marks publication. By doing this, the boards and councils earn the goodwill of their students and also enhance their credibility in the market.
Reception
The Council of Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE), a premier private board of school education in India, has utilized OLICR technology for academic year 2016 to publish marks. With the use of this technology, the results was published 2 weeks earlier than expected.
The solution won the National Award for the Most Innovative Product in the Testing & Assessment Category held at the e-India Summit held at Kovalam, Kerala State, India in mid-November 2014.
See also
Character recognition
Rubric (academic)
Tablet computer
Data encryption
Data remanence
List of institutions of higher education in India
Board examination
Matriculation
References
External links
Automatic identification and data capture |
47559305 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playfair%20%28surname%29 | Playfair (surname) | Playfair is an English surname which came to England after the Norman Conquest. The name derives from the Old French toponymic surname Plouvier and came from Plouvien, Brittany. Notable people with the surname include:
Andrew W. Playfair (1790–1868), Canadian politician, son of William
Dylan Playfair (born 1992), Canadian actor
Sir Edward Playfair (1909–1999), British civil servant and businessman
Guy Lyon Playfair (1935 – 2018) British writer, son of I.S.O. Playfair
Henry Playfair (born 1983), Australian rules footballer
Hugh Lyon Playfair (1787–1861), Provost of St Andrews
Ian Stanley Ord Playfair (1894–1972), a general in the British Army and contributing author to British official history of the Second World War
James Playfair (1755–1794), Scottish architect, brother of John, Robert and William, father of William Henry
Jim Playfair (born 1964), Canadian ice hockey player and coach, brother of Larry
John Playfair (1748–1819), Scottish scientist, mathematician, and professor of natural philosophy; brother of James, Robert and William
Judy Playfair (born 1953), Australian swimmer
Sir Lambert Playfair (1828–1899), British soldier and author
Larry Playfair (born 1958), Canadian ice hockey player and announcer, brother of Jim
Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair (1818–1898), promoter of the Playfair cipher, manual symmetric encryption technique
Sir Nigel Playfair (1874–1934), British actor and theater manager
Patrick Playfair (1889–1974), British senior officer in Flying Corps and later RAF
Robert Playfair (died 1825), solicitor before the Supreme Courts of Scotland, brother of John, James and William.
Wendy Playfair, Australian actress
William Playfair (1759–1823), Scottish engineer and political economist, inventor of statistical graphics, brother of James, Robert and John
William Henry Playfair (1790–1857), Scottish architect (National Gallery of Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy), son of James
John Playfair Price (1905–1988), British diplomat |
47564307 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi%20deauthentication%20attack | Wi-Fi deauthentication attack | A Wi-Fi deauthentication attack is a type of denial-of-service attack that targets communication between a user and a Wi-Fi wireless access point.
Technical details
Unlike most radio jammers, deauthentication acts in a unique way. The IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) protocol contains the provision for a deauthentication frame. Sending the frame from the access point to a station is called a "sanctioned technique to inform a rogue station that they have been disconnected from the network".
An attacker can send a deauthentication frame at any time to a wireless access point, with a spoofed address for the victim. The protocol does not require any encryption for this frame, even when the session was established with Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) for data privacy, and the attacker only needs to know the victim's MAC address, which is available in the clear through wireless network sniffing.
Usage
Evil twin access points
One of the main purposes of deauthentication used in the hacking community is to force clients to connect to an evil twin access point which then can be used to capture network packets transferred between the client and the access point.
The attacker conducts a deauthentication attack to the target client, disconnecting it from its current network, thus allowing the client to automatically connect to the evil twin access point.
Password attacks
In order to mount a brute-force or dictionary based WPA password cracking attack on a WiFi user with WPA or WPA2 enabled, a hacker must first sniff the WPA 4-way handshake. The user can be elicited to provide this sequence by first forcing them offline with the deauthentication attack.
In a similar phishing style attack without password cracking, Wifiphisher starts with a deauthentication attack to disconnect the user from their legitimate base station, then mounts a man-in-the-middle attack to collect passwords supplied by an unwitting user.
Attacks on hotel guests and convention attendees
The Federal Communications Commission has fined hotels and other companies for launching deauthentication attacks on their own guests; the purpose being to drive them off their own personal hotspots and force them to pay for on-site Wi-Fi services.
Toolsets
Aircrack-ng suite, MDK3, Void11, Scapy, and Zulu software can mount a WiFi deauthentication attack. Aireplay-ng, an aircrack-ng suite tool, can run a deauthentication attack by executing a one-line command:
aireplay-ng -0 1 -a xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -c yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy wlan0
arms deauthentication attack mode
is the number of deauths to send; use 0 for infinite deauths
is the AP (access point) MAC (Media Access Control) address
is the target client MAC address; omit to deauthenticate all clients on AP
is the NIC (Network Interface Card)
Pineapple rogue access point can issue a deauth attack.
See also
Radio jamming
IEEE 802.11w – offers increased security of its management frames including authentication/deauthentication
References
Further reading
author's link (no paywall)
GPS, Wi-Fi, and Cell Phone Jammers — FCC FAQ
Denial-of-service attacks |
47564380 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Mr.%20Robot%20episodes | List of Mr. Robot episodes | Mr. Robot is an American drama–thriller television series created by Sam Esmail. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker who has social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Alderson is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists. The group aims to cancel all debts by attacking the large conglomerate E Corp.
The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015.
Series overview
Episodes
Season 1 (2015)
First-season episode titles have a suffix corresponding to a type of digital container format.
Season 2 (2016)
Second-season episode titles have a suffix corresponding to a type of encryption.
Season 3 (2017)
Third-season episode titles are in the form of coding library files, compressed archives and a torrent file, while the season finale title is in the form of a computer command ("shutdown -r").
Season 4 (2019)
The first ten episode titles are HTTP status codes in the 4xx range.
Notes
Specials
Supplementary content
In June 2016, USA Network announced Hacking Robot, a live aftershow hosted by Andy Greenwald. The first episode of Hacking Robot debuted after the season two premiere, with guests Sam Esmail, Rami Malek, Christian Slater, Carly Chaikin and Portia Doubleday and received 376,000 viewers. The second installment aired on September 7, 2016, after the tenth episode of the second season, and received 320,000 viewers.
In addition, a weekly web-only aftershow titled Mr. Robot Digital After Show premiered on The Verge and USA Network's websites after the third episode.
Ratings
Overview
Season 1
The first episode of Mr. Robot was released across multiple digital platforms in advance of its first broadcast. It had a viewership of 2.7 million prior to the first broadcast of the episode.
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
References
External links
Lists of American drama television series episodes |
47595561 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics%20and%20technology | Politics and technology | Politics and technology encompasses concepts, mechanisms, personalities, efforts, and social movements that include, but are not necessarily limited to, the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs). Scholars have begun to explore how internet technologies influence political communication and participation, especially in terms of what is known as the public sphere.
The smartphone is a transformational communication technology that has features that include talk, text messaging, Internet access, electronic mail, faxing, pictures, video, and a wide variety of applications. Mobile devices are one of the important reasons for the rise of political participation and are now portrayed as a voting agent in the least developed countries. Increased availability of mobile phones, and subsequent access to the public sphere, has enhanced individuals' and groups' ability to bring attention to and organize around specialized issues.
More recently, social media has emerged as one of the main platforms for politics. Millions of users can learn about politicians' policies and statements, interact with political leaders, organize, and voice their own opinions on political matters. Political campaigns are also using social media sites to reach voters using political advertising.
There are also a wide variety of online tools that are meant to promote political participation and combat the spread of misinformation. A comparison of civic technology platforms can be useful in differentiating the different services offered by each platform.
The digital public sphere
The idea of the public sphere has generally come to be understood as the open social spaces and public spaces in which private citizens interact and share information and ideas relevant to the society. These can include, for example, town halls, public squares, markets, coffee shops, or what ancient Greeks called agoras. Scholars have argued that these spaces are vitally important for creating and maintaining an active and informed public in a democratic society.
In Jürgen Habermas' book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, he defines the public sphere as "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed." In principle, the public sphere should be open to all citizens, and free from influence from governments or private businesses. Habermas goes on to argue that:
"A portion of the public sphere is constituted in every conversation in which private persons come together to form a public. They are then acting neither as business or professional people conducting their private affairs, nor as legal consociates subject to the legal regulations of a state bureaucracy and obligated to obedience. Citizens act as a public when they deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion; thus with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinions freely."
Howard Rheingold states that, "There is an intimate connection between informal conversations, the kind that take place in communities... and the ability of large social groups to govern themselves without monarchs or dictators." Rheingold and others have gone on to argue that virtual spaces created through the Internet and related information and communications technologies have led to the emergence of a new type of digital public sphere. Some scholars have conceptualized this alternately as a virtual public sphere or a networked public sphere, while still others have similarly described what they call a networked society or networked publics. Essentially, these new virtual spaces can be used in much the same way as traditional, offline spaces: that is, as a "free space" to discuss and debate ideas of public importance. Just as the public sphere is a combination of "every conversation in which private persons come together to form a public", the digital public sphere also comprises all forms of new media—such as chat rooms, website comment sections, and social media—in which private citizens engage in discourse as a public. Virtual spaces may overlap or interact with offline spaces as well, forming what has been called "hybrid networks".
Scholars argue that social media affords increasing opportunities for political discourse and mobilization within the digital public sphere. Research has shown that increased use of social media correlates with increases in certain types of political engagement and participation. Rabia Karakaya Polat, a politics and technology scholar, finds that the Internet leads to a more informed and better society. The Internet enables information to be dispersed at an increased rate, compared to traditional means, at little cost. For most users, the amount of information can be helpful to understand various political atmospheres but can also overwhelm users. The digital public sphere thus has the potential to enliven democratic culture and enhance the ability of citizens to challenge the political and economic power of governments and corporations, such as through online protests, activism campaigns, and social movements. Other scholars have highlighted, alongside economic globalization, the role of Internet technologies in reaching across national borders to contribute to a growing transnational public sphere.
Criticisms
Social exclusion
The traditional, offline public sphere has been criticized for not being as inclusive in practice as it is in theory. For example, Feminist scholars like Nancy Fraser have argued that the public sphere has historically not been as open or accessible to disadvantaged or marginalized groups in a society, such as women or people of color; therefore, such groups are forced to form their own separate public spheres, which she refers to as a counter-public or subaltern counter public (see ).
Some scholars contend that online spaces are more open and thus may help to increase inclusive political participation from marginalized groups. In particular, anonymous online spaces should allow all individuals to speak with an equal voice to others. However, others have pointed out that many contemporary online spaces are not anonymous, such as Facebook. Avatars and social media profiles often portray an individual's offline identity, which can lead to practices of online discrimination and exclusion which mirror offline inequalities. Now, more and more historically disadvantaged or marginalized groups are also using Internet technology to carve out new online spaces for their own "networked counterpublics", such as through the use of hashtags like #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter.
Another example of social exclusion happens when users homogenize their information by finding information that reinforces their own opinions or websites that have the most content or are promoted consistently. This can lead users to ignore sites that are less frequently promoted. Evidence of this was discovered by Steven M. Schneider, who found that although participation was overwhelmingly large on internet chat rooms discussing politics of abortion, the chat log was influenced and controlled by users that contributed the most content, with those who responded less frequently typically agreeing or adjusting their opinions based on the users who contributed more.
The digital divide
Another factor that affects access to the digital public sphere is the digital divide, which refers to how people from less developed countries tend to have less access to information and communications technologies compared to those from more developed countries. For example, the most developed regions of the world, such as North America and Western Europe, have the highest Internet penetration rates at over 80% each, while the least developed countries such as in Africa and South Asia have less than 30% each. On the other hand, the reduced cost and increasing availability of mobile devices such as smartphones throughout less developed regions is helping to reduce this disparity at an exponential rate. In just two years, between 2013 and 2015, the number of Internet users in developing nations has risen by 9%, according to the Pew Research Center. Other research has shown, though, that even within more developed countries like the United States, the digital divide continues to persist between upper and lower socioeconomic classes and between different education levels. Furthermore, scholars like Mark Warschauer argue that it is not just access to technology that matters, but the knowledge of how to put that technology to use in meaningful ways.
Use of Bots and Sock Puppets
Internet bots, also known as web robots, robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes, and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. More than half of all web traffic is generated by bots. Software can detect and confirm the presence of bots through qualitative coding. An example would be the Bot-a-meter, developed by Indiana University, which evaluates 7 different factors to determine whether or not a request is generated by a bot.
A Sock Puppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who is pretending to be another person. The term has come to designate other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization, to manipulate public opinion, to skew online voting results, or to evade blocks. There is significant evidence to indicate that the Internet Research Agency, a group of professional Russian trolls, created fake accounts on major networking sites and online newspapers, to promote specific Ukrainian, Middle Eastern, and American political issues, even advocating for Trump as early as December 2015.
Ease of manipulation
Citizens involved in politics have experienced a sense of security while engaged in physically attending a polling place or submitting their vote through mail. Such experiences now have digital counterparts. In areas such as the United States, online voting has been developing in the form of smartphone applications or secure websites. Online voting allows more citizens to exercise their right to vote by breaking down the physical barriers that may keep a voter away from the polls.
As an unwanted result, online voting is easier to manipulate. Social media apps such as Instagram or Facebook have taken the initiative to get people registered and motivated to go and vote. Despite their efforts, there are social media accounts engineered to misinform the public, causing a jaded perspective toward electable candidates or understanding policies.
Another way users are manipulated is by directly interfering with the vote. In the 2016 U.S. election, J. Alex Halderman, a computer scientist and director of computer security at the University of Michigan, advocated for the Clinton campaign to request a recount in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which were thought to be lost by her through the computer manipulation of voting machines.
In the 2020 Iowa caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party used a new mobile app to count and transmit primary election results live in real-time. Official users of the application suffered from reporting issues, leading to incomplete data, and a bottleneck during transmission. Since the 2020 Iowa caucuses, other state's Democratic parties have declined to use the Shadow Inc. application for their state's primaries. Marian Schneider, the president of Verified Voting, released a statement that says,
"The situation with Iowa's caucus reveals the risks associated with technology, in this case with a mobile app, but more importantly that there needs to be a low-tech solution in order to recover from technological failures -- no matter the cause, There needs to be a way to monitor, detect, respond and recover. It's clear that mobile apps are not ready for prime time, but thankfully Iowa has paper records of their vote totals and will be able to release results from those records."
Social Media as a channel of distribution
Studies show that social media allows politicians to easily engage with the general public without the use of mainstream media. This allows them to express and present themselves however they deem fit, without a filter or fact checking. This is evident from recent US presidential campaigns, where voters were able to connect with Trump, not only as a politician but as a person. Studies show, "The fact that Trump delegated much [less] social media work to professionals than either of the Obama campaigns and the 2016 Clinton campaign meant that his candidate image on social media was much closer to his self-presentation. To a degree, Trump therefore came across as more consistent an authentic compared to Clinton, [an] image that was strengthened by his position as a newcomer in politics."
Digital technology is shaping the new age of electoral politics, rather than "breaking" it; and it is creating a more transparent view and perspective of electoral politics for the voter. Digital technology allows people to publish information that could be faulty and unreliable but could be taken seriously and shift political opinion, thus possibly leading to an unfit politician being elected to office. Furthermore, digital technology can also be used to exploit the lack of quality journalism, as it can be used for political manipulation through the use of "trolls and bots, disguised as ordinary citizens, [have become] a weapon of choice for governments and political leaders to shape online conversations. Governments in Turkey, China, Israel, Russia and the United Kingdom are known to have deployed thousands of hired social media operatives who run multiple accounts to shift or control public opinion." These political manipulation may also come in another form, in which they are facilitated by said platforms due to financial support from advertisers, this can create false or targeted advertising campaigns that aim to manipulate voter thinking. These tactics may be used by officials up for election to boost campaign support, or by an outside actor such as a foreign government supporting a politician or a party that would benefit them internationally, therefore directly manipulating political thought within a society.
Leapfrog democracies
'Leapfrogging' originally denoted those societies that—through possibly radical, but even small and incremental, innovation—experience enormous development in the fields of industrial organization and economic growth and "leapfrog" once dominant rivals. It was a term first used at the Personal Democracy Forum in 2014. The term can be applied to a country's governmental institutions, the country thus becoming a "leapfrog democracy".
Tunisia
An example of this is the new Tunisian constitution. Learning from America and other countries, Tunisia developed a constitution that provides more rights than typical constitutions with regard to issues concerning climate change, healthcare, women's rights, and workers' rights. They have provided rights that the United States' government does not guarantee its citizens. Tunisia has set the stage for many other countries to follow in their footsteps, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Although these countries' attempts at democratic government have not been nearly as successful as Tunisia's.
Estonia
Another example of a leapfrog democracy is Estonia, which became one of the first countries to employ online voting. Nearly 99% of their public services are available online, and a reported 44% of Estonia citizens use them. Electronic voting in Estonia has been in place since 2005, and a citizen can cast their vote through an app on their mobile device. Through Estonia's national ID infrastructure, National ID cards have the ability to perform cryptographic functions to authenticate citizens' access to different websites and place legally binding signatures on documents, if needed. These cards work through the use of two different RSA key pairs. However, there are still some drawbacks to this voting process, as there are inadequate procedural controls that are inexplicably changed or are not followed, lax operational security, and insufficient transparency. These weaknesses can allow for client-side attacks on the voting system.
Additionally, in 2014, Estonia became the first country to introduce an e-Residency program, with the intention of “[creating] a worldwide virtual business environment, where people from both the developed and developing countries can easily become entrepreneurs and start doing business anywhere in the world.” This program allows individuals from across the globe to digitally apply for Estonian citizenship by simply filling out an online application form and passing a background check.
Presence of online tools for political participation
With the increasing use of technology in the political sphere, many new platforms and apps have emerged in an attempt to provide unbiased information to the general public in a manner that is accessible to all. Many of these apps hope to be able to spread this information so that voters may be more informed about politics and make more of an informed decisions when voting. Some examples are Liquid.us, Countable, Capitol Bells, Fiscalnote, and Councilmatic. Technology is progressing rapidly to making a significant impact on future campaigns. A comparison of civic technology platforms highlights the similarities and differences between different online tools used for political participation.
iSideWith
iSideWith is an application that seeks to provide voters with an educated guess of who they would politically side with. They have an in-depth survey on their website that asks about the users' political opinion on common issues currently discussed within the government, to give the voter a ranking of which politician best aligns with their political stance. The more time the voters spend filling out the survey, the more accurate the results will align with their political stance. The application is available in multiple countries, such as the United States, Canada, India, Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.
Change.org
Change.org is a website that allows people to take a stance on something they agree or disagree with and actually petition for others to rally behind their cause. People can search for existing petitions concerning a cause that they feel strongly about, or they have the option of starting their own. The website displays past successful petitions that have made an impact. The petition does not necessarily have to be related to politics. There are many surveys that could be targeting different issues within their neighborhood but can range up to a social issue that they believe the whole world should be aware about.
D21
D21 is a platform that allows people to participate in voting on issues through a form of "modern democracy". It is also known as the D21 – Janeček method, which allows people to cast both a negative and a positive vote. D21 wishes to accurately inform users about different issues happening within their community and provide them with a platform for voicing their opinions. The platform is used mainly in the Czech Republic to target corruption within the Czech government. Though it has not yet been used in any general elections, D21 – Janeček method has been used in several participatory budgeting programs around the world, including New York City, in the United States. The Czech government introduced the game Prezident 21, which is an interactive website created to aid people in familiarizing themselves with the D21 system.
Verified Voting
Verified Voting is a website that uses its online presence to discourage the movement of voting towards a more digital age. In a section about Internet Voting, they speak about the dangers and information leaks that come with using the Internet, or anything digital, to cast votes, even with blockchain. Verified Voting defines Internet voting to include email, fax voting, or any voting through an online portal. This is due to the fact that any form of electronic voting can leave the vote susceptible to a large number of security threats, including cyber-attacks that can skew voting results. According to NIST, it is difficult to make sure that votes are coming from verified and registered voters and have not been changed in transit. This is difficult to verify over the Internet and thus makes casting votes in person and through paper ballots more effective and safe, even with the flaws of that process. Verified Voting has a "verifier" visualizer to provide detail on election equipment used by localities in all the states.
Blockchain voting platforms
Blockchain voting is the concept of traditional paper voting becoming digitized through a voting-token format where voting information is decentralized and data is easily accounted for. With the rise of technology in the current political environment, blockchain voting, to combat voter fraud and increase democratic participation, has become an increasingly discussed topic. Blockchain voting is a digital ledger, which relies on a network of nodes that encrypt and protect information from being corrupted by a single party. Platforms in the blockchain voting market aim to increase efficiency and transparency in voting systems where casting and counting votes are simplified and verifiable. Some example platforms include Democracy Earth, Polyas, Votem, Boulé, and Horizon State.
Democracy Earth
Democracy Earth is a nonprofit startup with the goal of improving voting systems by utilizing the blockchain. Founded by Santiago Siri, whose vision is to create "political cryptocurrency" by utilizing blockchain-generated tokens from Democracy Earth's processes, with which users cast their votes. With blockchain voting technology, the need for a centralized government authority is removed, along with possible bias, censorship, or corruption affecting the voting and tabulation process. When faced with criticisms and concerns about the financial aspects of the vote token, Siri explains that Democracy Earth plans to mint a maximum of 500 million tokens, each priced at 12 cents, therefore spawning a $60 million market. Current plans within Democracy Earth call for employees to be compensated in the form of these vote tokens.
Polyas
Polyas was established in 1996 with its technology being used to organize the first online election in Finland, involving 30,000 votes and 3 languages. Started by Wolfgang Jung, the company and its software was eventually passed on to a company called Micromata, which created a new spin-off corporation in 2012 called POLYAS GmbH. Polyas uses private, local blockchains to run its voting procedures, which differs from the general decentralized blockchains. The current services Polyas provide are online voting, on-site live voting, and resolution and amendment voting to customers that range from youth parliaments to corporations. Currently, the company is looking to optimize its "universal verifiability" feature through the reduction of slow communication times while ensuring ballots are counted accurately.
Votem
Votem is a mobile voting platform that was created in 2014 by Pete Martin with a goal of having 1 billion voters on their platform by 2025. Through blockchain technology, Votem offers a variety of services such as online voter registration, accessible voting for those with disabilities, and electronic ballot marking. In August 2017, Votem had been inducted into the U.S Election Assistance Commission's voting systems testing and certification program. With partnerships including the Blockchain Research Institute and the National Association of the Secretary of State, Votem looks to target a range of elections, ranging from small, private elections to government elections.
Boulé
Boulé was founded in 2017 and is a blockchain voting system that focuses on campaign integrity through security and transparency. Boulé is powered through the blockchain platform of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Boulé has its own form of voting currency, referred to as Boulé tokens (BOU), and launched a pre-sale in August 2017 that was distributed until hitting a ceiling of 10,000. Boulé specializes in using biometric facial recognition, alongside other mobile identification methods, and encryption to identify and provide voter anonymity.
Horizon State
Horizon State, led by CEO Tim Goggin, offers two main products, one being a "tamper-resistant digital ballot box" and the second being an engagement platform for users in voting processes. Horizon State utilizes preferential voting and weighted voting systems to manage candidate selection. Horizon State currently serves a few customer groups, including governments, councils, unions, political parties, corporations, and broadcasters. The company was named a "Technology Pioneer" by the World Economic Forum as well as being a finalist in Blockchain Australia's Government Project of the Year.
GovTech and Politics
GovTech denotes the concept of utilizing technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence to increase accessibility to and efficiency in government and public policy. GovTech is an growing industry around the world, with an estimated worth of $400 billion in total market value. Different subcategories of GovTech exist: for example, LegisTech, which regards legislative innovation to enhance cooperation between citizens, public servants, and corporations. The growth in the GovTech industry has spurred innovation within the private sector; however, there is also a rising number of concerns surrounding private corporations providing software for government use.
LabHacker
An example of LegisTech is LabHacker, which is a laboratory that uses data analysis to track hotly debated topics in the Brazilian parliament and publicly presents the data to keep citizens and other government officials informed. It is an initiative directed by Walternor Brandão under the auspices of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. LabHacker embraces 5 main "pillars" or ideals: participation, transparency, experimentation, collaboration, and inspiration.
See also
:Category:Regulation of technologies
Cultural lag
Digital rights
E-democracy
E-government
Electronic voting
Hashtag activism
Internet activism
Internet censorship
Media activism
Neo-Luddism
Netizen
Online deliberation
Public hypersphere
Technocracy
Technology policy
Comparison of civic technology platforms
References
Technology
Technology in society |
47596284 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadas%20P.%20Shenoy | Ramadas P. Shenoy | Ramadas Panemangalore Shenoy was an Indian defence scientist and writer, known for his contributions in the field of Radar technology. He secured a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and joined Defence Research and Development Organization in 1961, involving himself with the indigenous development of Radar technology till his retirement, as a Distinguished Scientist, in 1989.
A fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Distinguished Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, Shenoy served as a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He is credited with several publications and his book, Defence Research and Development Organisation, 1958-1982 details the history military research at the organization. He is a recipient of the IETE-IRSI Award and Aryabhatta Award. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1987.
Early life and education
Dr. R. P. Shenoy also known as Ramadas Panemangalore Shenoy was born to Mrs. P. Sanjivi Shenoy and Mr. Panemangalore Narasimha Shenoy in Mangalore, Karnataka, India on 28 April 1929.
Dr. R. P. Shenoy started his schooling at Canara High School, Mangalore, Karnataka, India and went to attend BSc Physics at Presidency College, University of Madras, Tamil Nadu, India. Thereafter, he moved to Banaras Hindu University, Varnasi, Uttar Pradesh, India for his Post Graduation in Physics. He completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Electrical Communication Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, Karnataka, India before moving to the University of Wisconsin, USA for his PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Career
After completing his PhD in 1957, he worked for 3 years in TV and Broadcasting Division of Radio Corporation of America at Camden, New Jersey, USA and then returned to Bangalore, Karnataka, India in 1960.
With his leadership and managerial skills, he played several roles with Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) from 1960 to 1987 including the role of Director from 1973 to 1987.
He worked as a Scientist in the following:
Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Bangalore, Karnataka, India - a unit under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ministry of Defence (1960-1967)
Deputy Director, Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India - a unit under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (1967-1971)
Deputed as Chief Technical Officer to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India - for Development of New Generation Radars to the Indian Air Force (1971-1973)
He has contributed significantly to Radar Technology and was also part of some of the most successful projects during his tenure in LRDE.
Directorship on other Boards –
NALTECH Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, Karnataka, India: Director (1993-2006)
ASM Technologies Limited, Bangalore, Karnataka, India : Director (1993-2002, 2006-2012)
Astra Microwave Products Limited, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India : Chairman (1995-2009)
Board of Director for Public Sector Units in India such as Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Hindustan Teleprinters Limited, Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS) and Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT)
Dr. R. P. Shenoy has been with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, since 1990 as a Visiting Professor and with the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, since 1993.
Death
Dr. R. P Shenoy died on 16 August 2012 at Bangalore.
Area of Expertise
His areas of expertise included, Electronics Engineering, microwave engineering, radar and communication technology, encryption and restricted access systems, with specific emphasis on defence applications and associated electronic warfare, microwave tubes.
Published works
Advanced Radar Techniques & Systems
IETE: The First Four Decades
Defence Research and Development Organisation (1958-1982)
Awards and achievements
Padma Shri, 1987, one of the highest civilian awards in India
VASVIK Research Award (1983) - Electrical and Electronic Sciences and Technology
IETE-IRSI Award (1985) for Pioneering Radar Development in India
Aryabhata Award (2000) for promoting Astronautics in India
Distinguished Alumnus (2000) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
DRDO Lifetime Achievement Award (2001)
Vacuum Electronic Devices & Applications Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2006)
Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering & Distinguished Fellow of IETE
Dr. R.P. Shenoy award for Excellence in Science
ASM Technologies Ltd. instituted the “Dr. R. P. Shenoy award for Excellence in Science” in memory of its former Director, Late Dr. R. P. Shenoy, a Distinguished Scientist of Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) of the Government of India. The award is extended to 8th and 9th grade students of Kendriya Vidyalaya, DRDO complex, Bangalore, who have secured A1 grade in Science.
Bibliography
Advanced Radar Techniques & Systems
IETE: The First Four Decades
Defence Research and Development Organisation (1958-1982)
See also
Radar
Defence Research and Development Organisation
References
Recipients of the Padma Shri in science & engineering
Indian military engineers
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni
Indian Institute of Science faculty
Indian technology writers
People associated with radar
20th-century Indian engineers
Scientists from Bangalore
1929 births
2012 deaths |
47764455 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile%20Broadband%20Plus | Mobile Broadband Plus | Mobile Broadband Plus (MBB+) is a term for wireless Internet access through mobile devices. Mobile Broadband Plus is distinct from traditional mobile broadband by featuring global Internet access, providing international mobile services without roaming charges.
Development
Standards of Mobile Broadband Plus have been developed by telecommunication, mobile phone, and laptop computer manufacturers which includes virtual SIM and cloud SIM technology. Established in 2012, a group of specialists from uCloudlink has adopted cloud SIM as one of the MBB+ standards which provides a global network solution without roaming charges.
High speed anywhere and anytime
In 2011, 90% of the world's population lived in areas with 2G coverage, while 45% lived in areas with 2G and 3G coverage. Mobile broadband uses the spectrum of 225 MHz to 3700 MHz.
MBB+ is designed to address issues with connectivity, network capacity, application quality, and mobile network operators' overall inexperience with data traffic. The service of MBB+ covers the globe, normally in 100+ countries, providing high speed internet on the move with 3G and 4G connectivity.
Roaming free
Through patented Cloud SIM technology, MBB+ taps into a world's worth of SIM cards that are located throughout the globe. It will find the most optimal local mobile network and the corresponding SIM card in the cloud SIM server via the internet, then starts to convert the local mobile connection into Wi-Fi signals. In this case, all the data resource are within "domestic" boundaries and saving the user from international charges.
Secure access
WBB+ supports Wi-Fi encryption including WPA and WPA2.
See also
References
Mobile telecommunications
Broadband |
47768524 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%20A9 | Apple A9 | The Apple A9 is a 64-bit ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC), designed by Apple Inc. Manufactured for Apple by both TSMC and Samsung, it first appeared in the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus which were introduced on September 9, 2015. Apple states that it has 70% more CPU performance and 90% more graphics performance compared to its predecessor, the Apple A8.
Design
The A9 features an Apple-designed 64-bit 1.85 GHz ARMv8-A dual-core CPU called Twister. The A9 in the iPhone 6S has 2 GB of LPDDR4 RAM included in the package. The A9 has a per-core L1 cache of 64 KB for data and 64 KB for instructions, an L2 cache of 3 MB shared by both CPU cores, and a 4 MB L3 cache that services the entire SoC and acts as a victim cache. The A9 also features a custom PowerVR Series7XT @ 650 MHz GPU, featuring 6x custom shader cores and compiler from Apple.
The A9 includes a new image processor, a feature originally introduced in the A5 and last updated in the A7, with better temporal and spatial noise reduction as well as improved local tone mapping. The A9 directly integrates an embedded M9 motion coprocessor, a feature originally introduced with the A7 as a separate chip. In addition to servicing the accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and barometer, the M9 coprocessor can recognize Siri voice commands. The A9 adds hardware decoding for HEIF and 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC.
The support of Codecs by decoding and encoding is available only for JPEG. H264, VP8, AVC and VC1 are available for decoding. VP9, AV1 are not supported by hardware.
The A9 features a custom storage solution, which uses an Apple-designed NVMe-based controller that communicates over a PCIe connection. The iPhone 6s' NAND design is more akin to a PC-class SSD than embedded flash memory common on mobile devices. This gives the phone a significant storage performance advantage over competitors which often use eMMC or UFS to connect to their flash memory.
Microarchitecture
The A9's microarchitecture is similar to the second generation Cyclone (used in A8 chip) microarchitecture. Some of the microarchitectural features are as follows:
About half of the performance boost over A8 comes from the 1.85 GHz frequency. About a quarter comes from the better memory subsystem (3× bigger caches). The remaining quarter comes from the microarchitectural tuning and smaller technology node.
Encryption
According to Apple, "Every iOS device has a dedicated AES-256 crypto engine built into the DMA path between the flash storage and main system memory, making file encryption highly efficient. On A9 or later A-series processors, the flash storage subsystem is on an isolated bus that is only granted access to memory containing user data via the DMA crypto engine."
Dual sourcing
Apple A9 chips are fabricated by two companies: Samsung and TSMC. The Samsung version is called APL0898, which is manufactured on a 14 nm FinFET process and is 96 mm2 large, while the TSMC version is called APL1022, which is manufactured on a 16 nm FinFET process and is 104.5 mm2 large.
There was intended to be no significant difference in performance between the parts, but in October 2015, it was alleged that iPhone 6S models with Samsung-fabricated A9 chips consistently measured shorter battery life than those with TSMC-fabricated versions in CPU heavy usage; web browsing and graphics were not very different. Apple responded that "tests which run the processors with a continuous heavy workload until the battery depletes are not representative of real-world usage", and said that internal testing combined with customer data demonstrated a variance of only 2–3%.
Naming
While the Twister CPU core implements the ARMv8-A instruction set architecture licensed from ARM Holdings, it is an independent CPU design and is unrelated to the much older but similarly named Cortex-A9 and ARM9 CPU that are designed by ARM themselves and implement the 32-bit ARMv7-A and ARMv5E versions of the architecture.
Gallery
The processors are nearly identical visually. The packaging have the same dimensions (approx 15.0×14.5 mm) and only superficial differences, like the designation text. Inside the packaging the silicon die differs in size.
ARKit
The A9 processor is listed as the minimum requirement for ARKit.
Products that include the Apple A9
iPhone 6S and 6S Plus
iPhone SE (1st generation)
iPad (5th generation)
See also
Apple silicon, the range of ARM-based processors designed by Apple.
Apple A9X
References
A9
ARM architecture
Computer-related introductions in 2015
64-bit microprocessors |
47776353 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri%20Boudet | Henri Boudet | L'abbé Jean-Jacques-Henri Boudet (16 November 1837 – 30 March 1915), is best known for being the French Catholic parish priest of Rennes-les-Bains between 1872 and 1914 and for being the author of the book La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, first published in 1886 (since 1967, when he became associated with the alleged mystery of Rennes-le-Château).
Biography
Boudet was born on 16 November 1837 in the house of Mrs Zoé (Angélique-Zoé-Caroline née Saurel) Pinet-Laval (Boudet's neighbour), a widow in Quillan in the department of Aude and died on 30 March 1915 in Axat. He was the third of four children, the second of three sons, of Pierre-Auguste Boudet (died on 10 February 1841 and Jeanne-Adélaide-Elizabeth Huillet. Boudet's father was the manager of the forges of Quillan who had been authorized (1837) by François-Denis-Henry-Albert, Count de La Rochefoucauld-Bayers (1799–1854), a member of a prominent French aristocratic family, the De la Rochefoucault to act as his sole representative to constitute a joint venture, la societé des forges et fonderies d'Axat, a Forge and casting plant, the partnership was also composed of controlling shareholder, Ange-Jean-Michel-Bonaventure (1767–1847), 4th Marquess of Dax d'Axat, once Mayor of Montpellier and his son Barthélémy-Léon-François-Xavîer de Dax. Nothing is known about Boudet's early years following his father death and how his family managed to survive financially is not documented either; Gérard de Sède claimed – without citing any evidence – that Boudet entered holy orders through the patronage of Abbé Emile-Francois-Henri Géraud de Cayron (1807–1897). After completing his seminary studies in Carcassonne, where he also earned his degree in English language and literature, Boudet was ordained to the priesthood on Christmas Day 1861, he spent the first year of his priesthood in Durban-Corbières until 16 June 1862 when he was assigned to Caunes-Minervois up to 30 October 1866. On 1 November 1866, Boudet was appointed parish priest of Festes-et-Saint-André, next to the town of Limoux. In 1872, Boudet was transferred to Rennes-les-Bains (succeeding L'abbé Jean Vié who had died a short time earlier) until 1914 when he was discharged from his duty by the Bishop of Carcassonne, Mgr Paul-Félix Beuvain de Beauséjour (1839–1930), due to serious illness. Boudet lived in Rennes-les-Bains with his mother and sister Jeanne, both died the same year in 1896.
Henri Boudet spent the rest of his days in Axat, where his younger brother Edmond (Jean-Baptiste-Edmond), who died on 5 May 1907, once worked as a notary.
The two Boudet brothers are buried in the same grave. It features two epitaph inscriptions, engraved horizontally and on the lower part of the gravestone, a small rectangular shaped figure on its surface, engraved vertically with the following inscription ΙΧΟΥΣ which stand for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.
The name of Henri Boudet's successor was published in the regional Catholic periodical Semaine Religieuse de Carcassonne of 2 May 1914. Abbé Joseph Rescanières died suddenly at the age of 37 on 1 February 1915 from a suspected heart attack.
A final tribute to Boudet's character was published in the same periodical mentioned above on 10 April 1915.
Boudet's interests and La Vraie langue celtique
Beside his priestly responsibilities, Boudet's interests extended to the fields of local history, archaeology, toponymy, linguistics and photography. He was made a member of the following learned societies, the Société des Arts et des Sciences de Carcassonne (1888) and of the Société de Linguistique de Paris (1897).
In the preface to his 1886 book, La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, Boudet stated that his "cromleck" was "intimately linked to the resurrection" (trouve intimement lié à la résurrection) and in turn cognate to the revival of the Celtic language (ou, si l'on veut, au réveil inattendu de la langue celtique) and therefore to his etymological arguments. The first five of the eight chapters in Boudet's 1886 book consists of an argument that ancient languages such as Basque, Celtic, Punic and Hebrew are derived from a more ancient mother language that was identical to Modern English. For example, when Boudet referred to the location known as The Realsès (today called "la Realsesse") he claimed it was derived from two English words: real (i.e., effective), and cess (tax), when commenting how "The Realsès runs in a valley whose fertile earth enables the inhabitants to pay their taxes and where the Celts till their ground for easy produce". The search for a mother language from which all other languages were derived was nothing new and Henri Boudet was not the first author to make such a proposition.
Philippe Schrauben, in his introduction to the 1984 re-published edition of Boudet's book, commented: "...we notice that La Vraie langue celtique... is a huge mosaic of extracts of 19th-century works carefully chosen to make them more or less coherent. There are not only detailed quotations but whole pages transcribed word for word and put end to end." Schrauben considered that to understand Boudet's book one would have to research his sources and read them in the context of their time.
Boudet also made historical claims, like for example that the Tectosages (mainly known about from Strabo, that he called "Volkes Tectosages"), were early inhabitants of the Aude and the ancestors of the Saxons and the Franks, therefore of the English and the French.
Chapters six to eight of Boudet's book consisted of an analysis and mapping of the geological structures surrounding Rennes-les-Bains, whereby he confused isolated large stone blocks, put in place by nature (some marked with naturally-formed Greek crosses, caused by water erosion, as testified by Gibert and Rancoule in 1969 and by others), with menhirs and listed them as part of his vast cromlech (Boudet intended to call his tour of the mountain ridges in the area of Rennes-les-Bains with this word), with the inclusion of a secondary stone circle, that was ridiculed by scholars.
Boudet's 'cromleck': a tour
Boudet described his "cromleck" in chapter seven of his book, which in essence was a circular tour of the mountain ridges around Rennes-les-Bains: the area in question is illustrated by a map that was drawn by his brother, Edmond (who also did the drawings in the book). It was claimed that this tour, the cromleck, marked out a drunemeton, a central meeting point of the Tectosages. According to Boudet, the word dru-neme-ton was derived from the now obsolete English word trow (meaning to think or believe), and name. Boudet claimed this represented the place in society where ancient sages gathered together (that Boudet called the Neimheid) to think up names for the places they lived in, "to carry out their scientific functions and make up the particular or general nomenclature". Bill Putnam summarized Boudet's central argument: the drunemeton was a "special place where the tribal dignitaries came together to invent these incredible names based on words from a language that had not yet come into existence."
Reactions to La Vraie langue celtique
The book, written with Apologetics intention, didn't go unnoticed at the time of its first publication. An enthusiastic article on his book was published in the French regional Newspaper Le Courrier de l'Aude of 18 December 1866, praising his pioneer work, followed shortly afterwards by a severely negative review, given by lawyer and historian Gaston Jourdanne (1858–1905), published in the French Newspaper Le Radical du Midi of 26 May 1887 that questioned the seriousness of Boudet's self-satisfied book.
The same year, Boudet's book was among the ten works selected for the prix Gobert, a prestigious prize (awarded to the most learning and detailed research concerning French history), distributed by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres but the prize was awarded to French historian and essayist Alphonse de Ruble (1834-1898) for his works entitled Le Mariage de Jeanne d'Albret and Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret. Boudet made an unsuccessful attempt to have his book honoured by the award of the médaille d'or, a prize (the awardee received a sum of money) distributed by the Académie des sciences, inscriptions et belles-lettres de Toulouse. M. Eugène Lapierre (1834-1923), speaking on behalf of the l'Académie des Sciences, commented about Boudet's book on 5 June 1887: "We cannot enter into a detailed criticism of this book in order to discuss all its whimsical assumptions and assertions, which are as gratuitous as they are audacious, and which seem to suggest that the author has a very fertile imagination. Adopting an exclusively religious viewpoint, the author has made unceasing use of authorities which have nothing to do with linguistics as it is nowadays constituted, such as the Bible, Latin authors, de Maistre, Chateaubriand, Figuier etc. We were not unsurprised to learn that the Punic language, which was spoken before Babel, was actually modern English, and was preserved by the Tectosages. This is what Monsieur Boudet has tried to prove to us by extraordinarily ingenious etymological feats. The Academy, while recognizing that an amount of work has gone into this volume which does deserve some respect, does not believe that it has a duty to set its seal of approval, by awarding a prize, on a system of historical reconstruction that is as bold as it is novel'."
A brief notice on Boudet's book, written by French prehistorian specialist Émile Cartailhac, a member of the Société d'Etudes Scientifiques de l'Aude and of the Société archéologique du Midi de la France was published in 1892 in the Revue des Pyrenées. Unsympathetic to Boudet's works, Cartailhac asked the local archeologists to be cautious about the claims of a gullible priest, author he said of the ridiculous book La Vrai langue celtique. In 1893, Cartailhac's notice was used by Gaston Jourdanne for his introduction of Boudet's book to the Société d'Etudes Scientifiques de l'Aude. Citing various renowned authorities, including a work by his friend, a well known Celtic expert, Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville, Jourdanne demonstrated the errors of Boudet's researches and conclusions. Jourdanne's harsh criticism went so far as to say that Boudet's study was worthy at most of publication in the British satirical magazine Punch.
Jourdanne's criticism of Boudet's book represented only one out of many.
Boudet's Celtic theory was utilized on at least one occasion. One of his colleagues, Abbé Raymond Ancé of Greffeil, Aude, who was also interested in archaeology and who was unhappy with the etymology of "Greffeil" derived from the Latin word, Agrifolium (meaning Holly), asked Boudet for his personal view on the matter. Boudet claimed that the etymology of "Greffeil" was derived from Grev-fill, meaning Full (plenty) and Grev (grave) translated as a place full of graves. Abbé Ancé then conducted an excavation in a part of his town and discovered some ancient graves possibly dating back to Neolithic times, as well as some artifacts (that were donated to the Museum of Carcassonne). Ancé's archeological discoveries were published in the French newspaper, Le Courrier de l'Aude and drew the attention of none other than Charles Dat de St-Foulc, the Honorary President of the Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude. St-Foulc with the archaeologist Germain Sicard went to Greffeil to see Ancé's discoveries for themselves. A report about Abbé Ancé's archaeological discoveries by Charles Dat de St-Foulc entitled Une excursion à Greffeil dans les Corbières was published in 1891 in the Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude. In 1875 one of Greffeil's inhabitants, Mr Barthe, unearthed an old tomb dating back to either Celtic Gaul or Roman Gaul periods; whether Boudet was aware of this discovery and used it to pen the etymology of "Greffeil" is open to debate.
Boudet autographed a copy of his book to the French doctor, author and politician Jacques-Auguste Bordes-Pagès (1815–1897). Bordes-Pagès made some additions of his own to Boudets's La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains.
Other recipients of Boudet's book included Queen Victoria and Pedro II of Brazil. The acknowledging letters, respectively dated March 20, 1889 and September 8, 1891 have survived. The first letter sent from Biarritz and written by Sir Henry Ponsonby reads as follows: "Sir Henry Ponsonby presents his compliments to Monsieur Cailhol and is commanded by The Queen Victoria to request him to thank the Reverend Pere Boudet for the interesting book on Languedoc and English which he has had the kindness to present to Her Majesty."
The second letter with similar sentiments was sent from Vichy and written by the Count of Aljezur, Chamberlain to the Emperor. It reads as follows: "His Majesty the Emperor Don Pedro d'Alcantara instructs me to thank you most cordially for the compliment and gift that you have kindly sent to His Majesty of your scientific work that He has just received along with your letter. My noble lord is very interested in linguistic and ethnographic studies and highly appreciates the information that you have sent him, and will be happy to know the outcome of your future researches and discoveries".
One of Boudet's copies of La Vraie langue celtique bears a signed dedication to the Bishop of Carcassonne, Mgr Paul-Félix Arsène Billard, that reads "A sa grandeur Monseigneur L'Évêque de Carcassonne. Hommage respectueux et filial de l'auteur. H. Boudet" (To his eminence, Monseigneur the Bishop of Carcassonne. Respectul and filial reverence from the author. H. Boudet).
Another of Boudet's copies of La Vraie langue celtique bears a signed dedication to the French esoterist Grasset d'Orcet, that reads "À G. d'Orcet, mon indéfectible amitié. H. Boudet" (To G. d'Orcet, my constant friend).
Abbé Joseph-Théodore Lasserre's historical study of the pilgrimage to the basilica church of Notre-Dame-Marceille, by Limoux (Histoire du pèlerinage de Notre-Dame de Marceille près de Limoux sur Aude) published in 1891, contains references to Boudet's book.
French officer Claude Dervieu, a member of the Académie des Arts, Sciences et Belles-lettres de Mâcon used Boudet's book as one of his sources when he compiled his study on Gallo-Celtic France (Les Origines gallo-celtiques de la Nation Française, 1907). In 1909, Dervieu's study was favourably reviewed by the committee of the Société historique et archéologique de Château-Thierry.
Boudet donated a copy of La vraie langue celtique to the Cambridge University Library, the book is still in the University of Cambridge's possession as late as 2015, in a letter written and signed by Boudet to the rector of the University of Cambridge, established the date of the donation on 11 December 1886. The manuscript of La vraie langue celtique was deposited in 1887 in the Manuscript Division of the Archives départementales, communales et hospitalières de l'Aude. Boudet donated another copy of his book to the Bibliothèque de la Société des Arts et des Sciences de Carcassonne in 1894. A Joseph Bonnafous was recorded to have done the same in 1907, this time to the Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude which he was also a member and possibly the same Bonnafous who was printer in Carcassonne, rue de la Mairie and blood relative of Victor Bonnafous who printed Boudet's book. The Bibliothèque nationale de France once held an original copy of the La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains but it went missing at some unknown date, its disappearance was reported during an inventory. The Bibliothèque de Narbonne had also received a copy of Boudet's book in 1889.
In 1914, Boudet's La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains and Remarques sur la phonétique du Dialecte Languedocien were listed in the Literature (generalities) and in the Provençal dialect (Aude dialects) sections of the Aude bibliography edited by the Bulletin de la Commission archéologique de Narbonne.
Boudet's discoveries
Boudet was credited with the discovery of a water-container embossed with a Christian cross in around 1886 and of a statue of the goddess Venus in around 1900 in the maison Chaluleau in Rennes-les-Bains (the statue was sold in America).
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque marking the centenary of Henri Boudet's death was placed in the church porch in Rennes-les-Bains on 6 June 2015. It was unveiled by the village mayor André Authier in the presence of the deputy mayor Marcelle Delmas.
Association with Saunière and Rennes-le-Château
There are no first-hand accounts available of Boudet and Saunière being close acquaintances, nor did Boudet ever undertake any historical researches in the village of Rennes-le-Château. The only connection that is certain is Boudet and Saunière were assigned to the same Diocese and their respective towns who lies at a short distance from each other, shared the same name.
Some Rennes-le-Château researchers are inclined to identify the BS monogram inscribed on the statue of the Devil supporting the Holy Water Stoup, located at the entrance to the church of Rennes-le-Château, with the surname initials of Boudet and Saunière or the names of two local rivers, the Blanque and the Sals (as first envisaged by Gérard de Sède in 1967), but there is no concrete evidence as to what the inscription actually means and remains undeciphered. Saunière referred to himself as B.S. in an early draft of his Will and testament written a short time after the death of his brother Alfred.
Conspiracy theories
Because Henri Boudet was Abbé of Rennes-les-Bains at the same period of time that Bérenger Saunière was incumbent at Rennes-le-Château, also for being the author of La Vraie langue celtique, he has become a central character in modern conspiracy theories.
Gérard de Sède, in collaboration with Pierre Plantard, offered a romantic interpretation of La Vraie Langue Celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains in his 1967 book L’Or de Rennes, claiming that Boudet wrote his book in a cryptic style that represented a code. De Sède interpreted the Church of Rennes-les-Bains and its churchyard also as part of a secret code, that led to and involved Rennes-le-Château.
As de Sède’s 1967 book became an immediate success, renewed interest increased in La Vraie Langue Celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, a book that only a few people had heard about previously.
Boudet’s book was re-edited in two different editions in 1978: a facsimile edition by Pierre Belfond, Paris, part of les classiques de l’occultisme, containing a foreword by Pierre Plantard and the second one, in a limited edition of 1,000 copies by La demeure Philosophale, Paris, with a foreword by Gérard de Sède (this edition did not respect the original pagination of Boudet's book).
Pierre Plantard, without providing any reliable sources in his 1978 foreword to Boudet's La Vraie langue celtique, claimed the book was published as a limited-edition of 500 copies that cost 5,382 francs: consisting of 98 copies sold in 28 years between 1886 and 1914; 100 free copies given to Public libraries, embassies and charities; 200 free copies available to visitors and patients who took the waters at the spa resort at Rennes-les-Bains interested in linguistics (or to any priests likely to be interested) – and the remaining 102 copies, according to Plantard, destroyed in 1914.
In fact, Boudet's book La Vraie Langue Celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains was available directly from the printer, Victor Bonnafous in Carcassonne, at the retail price of 3,50 francs and by mail order at the price of 3,75 francs, or 3,90 francs, as advertised in Le Courrier de l'Aude of 27 January 1887 (page 3). If the 3,50 francs is applied to the 500 copies said to have been printed as Plantard claimed, this totalled 1,750 francs, well below the said sum of 5,382 francs the book is reputed to have cost.
In his preface, Plantard also claimed that "someone from Axat" found Boudet's account books on a rubbish tip and these revealed that between 1887 and 1891 Boudet gave 3,679,431 francs to Marie Denarnaud (Saunière's housekeeper); and that between 1894 and 1903 had given her 837,260 francs (in the same period, Boudet had given 7,665,250 francs to the Bishop of Carcassonne, Mgr Billard).
Plantard's claims attracted the following criticisms: There is no evidence that Boudet was wealthy enough to give donations involving tens of millions of francs; Boudet's account books have never been seen and Plantard did not disclose the name of the person who had found them; there is no evidence in Saunière's papers that Boudet was involved with the refurbishment of the church of Rennes-le-Château. But some of Saunière's account books are available, spanning from July, 1895 to November 1915 showing that Saunière received small amounts of money from Boudet on an irregular basis, dating from March 1896, March and October 1897, January and November 1898, March 1899 and March 1900, amounting to a grand total of 290 francs.
In his 1988 book entitled, Rennes-le-Château; Le dossier, les impostures, les phantasmes, les hypothèses, de Sède affirmed once again that Boudet wrote La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains in a cryptic fashion, adding to his 1967 analysis that Boudet used Jonathan Swift's A Discourse to Prove the Antiquity of the English Tongue, Showing from various instances, that Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were derived from the English (1712) and his Ars Punica, sive flos lingarum; The Art of Punning or the flower of languages in 79 rules (1719) as a method of encryption. De Sède also added that "la Vraie langue celtique" and its associated subject matter, "le cromlech de Rennes-les-Bains" are not the real theme of Boudet's book but in fact, a treatise on secret geography.
Published works
La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains (1886), imprimeur, Victor Bonnafous, successor of François Pomiès, Carcassonne, 310 pages with illustrated map and drawings ex-librīs, printed In-duodecimo format.
Remarques sur la phonétique du Dialecte Languedocien (Mémoires de la Société des Arts et Sciences de Carcassonne, tome VII, pages 42–65, 1894; original manuscript lodged in Archives Départementales de l'Aude, cote 16PER7). Reprinted in Les Cahiers de Rennes-le-Château, tome IV, 1985.
Le livre d'Axat, a follow-up to Remarques sur la phonétique du Dialecte Languedocien (Reviewed by Louis Fédié, Mémoires de la Société des Arts et Sciences de Carcassonne, tome VIII, pages 74–78, 1896), manuscript and transcript published in Chaumeil and Rivière's L'Alphabet Solaire, Éditions du Borrego, pages 111-233.
Du Nom de Narbonne et exemples d'interpretation des mots gaulois par les racinnes saxonnes et l'anglais (1880), manuscript of 19 pages, facsimile published in the appendix of Urbain de Larouanne's La voie de Dieu et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains , Éditions Bélisane, (1987).
Spurious writings attributed to Boudet
Lazare Véni Foras! (1891 and 1914 editions). This imaginary book was first mentioned in the spurious document attributed to Madeleine Blancasall, Les Descendants mérovingiens ou l'Énigme du Razès wisigoth that was deposited in the Bibliothèque nationale in 1965 (claiming as its source, Genève: Alpina).
Notes
References
Bibliography
Joseph Ageorges, Une famille française au XIXe siècle (les Pagès et les Bordes-Pagès): contribution à l'étude des moeurs bourgeoises (Tourcoing: J. Duvivier, 1920)
Patrick Berlier, Daniel Dugès, Christian Doumergue, etc. (editors), L'ABC de RLC: l'Encyclopédie de Rennes-le-Château (Arqa éditions, 2009. ).
Claude Boumendil, Gilbert Tappa, Les Livres: L'Alphabet Solaire (Les Cahiers de Rennes-le-Château, tome IV, pages 43–47, Éditions Belisane, 1985).
Émile Cartailhac, Bibliographie Pyrénéenne et Méridionale: Bulletin de la commission archéologique et littéraire de l'arrondissement de Narbonne (Revue des Pyrenées et de la France méridionale, Tome IV, premier fascicule, Toulouse, 1892).
Rémy Cazals, Daniel Fabre, Dominique Blanc, Les Audois Dictionnaire biographique (Association des Amis des Archives de l'Aude, Fédération Audoise des Oeuvres Laïques, Société d'études scientifiques de l'Aude, Carcassonne, 1990. ).
Jean-Luc Chaumeil, Jacques Rivière, L'Alphabet Solaire: introduction à la langue universelle avec des textes inédits de l'abbé Boudet (Éditions du Borrego, 1985. ).
Paul Courrent, Notice Historique sur les Bains de Rennes connus anciennement sous le nom de Bains de Montferrand (Bulletin de la Société d'études scientifiques de l'Aude, Tome XXXVIII, 1934).
Ct Dervieu, Les Origines Gallo-Celtiques de la Nation Française – Extrait des Annales de l'Académie de Macon (3e série-Tome XII) (Macon, Protat frères, Imprimeurs 1907).
Urbain Gibert, Notes Historiques sur les Bains de Montferrand devenues les Bains de Rennes, Actuellement Rennes-les-Bains (Bulletin de la Société d’Ètudes Scientifiques de l’Aude, Tome LXXIII, 1973).
Urbain Gibert, Guy Rancoule, Rennes-les-Bains: note sur un tête sculptée (Bulletin de la Société Scientifiques de l’Aude, Tome LXIX, 1969).
André Goudonnet, Henri Boudet, abbé de Rennes-les-Bains: 100e anniversaire (Arqa éditions, 2015. )
Pierre Jarnac, Histoire du Trésor de Rennes-le-Château (L’Association pour le développement de la lecture, 1985; republished by Éditions Belisane, Cazilhac, 1998. ).
Pierre Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château, tome 1 (Éditions Belisane, 1987. )
Gaston Jourdanne, Bibliographie: La vraie langue celtique par l'abbé BOUDET (Le Radical du Midi, 26 May 1887).
Gaston Jourdanne, De quelques étymologies celtiques (Bulletin de la Société d'études scientifiques de l'Aude", quatriéme année, tome IV, 1893).
J.-Th. Lasserre, Histoire du pèlerinage de Notre-Dame de Marceille près de Limoux sur Aude, Limoux, Talamas, (1891).
Pierre Plantard, preface in Henri Boudet, La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains (introduction by Jean-Pierre Deloux, Paris: Éditions Pierre Belfond, 1978. ).
Bill Putnam, John Edwin Wood, The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, a Mystery Solved (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2003, ; Revised Paperback Edition, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2005. ).
Philippe Schrauben, introduction in Henri Boudet, La Vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains (Éditions Belisane, Cazilhac, 1984; facsimile edition with colorized map. ). Philippe Schrauben previously self-published Boudet's book in 1976, that did not respect the original pagination.
Gérard de Sède, L'Or de Rennes ou la Vie insolite de Bérenger Saunière, curé de Rennes-le-Château (Paris: René Julliard, 1967).
Gérard de Sède, Rennes-le-Château: le dossier, les impostures, les phantasmes, les hypothèses (Paris: Robert Laffont, "Les Énigmes de l'univers", 1988. ).
M. Charles Dat de St-Foulc, Une Excursion A Greffeil Dans les Corbières (Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude, Tome II, 1891)
Germain Sicard, Note sur les Croix Rupestres des Corbières (Bulletin de la Société Scientifiques de l’Aude, Tome XXXVII, 1928).
Bulletin de la Commission archéologique de Narbonne, Tome XIII (1914).
Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences, inscriptions et belles-lettres de Toulouse, Huitième série-Tome IX, Imprimerie Douloudure-Privat, Toulouse, 1887 (Eugène Lapierre, page 648).
Le Courrier de l'Aude 18 decembre 1886 (33me Année, N° 3994).
Le Courrier de l'Aude 27 janvier 1887 (33me Année, N° 4025).
Le Courrier de l'Aude 13 avril 1915 (58me Année, N° 12479).
External links
Picture of a 5th-6th century AD water container embossed with a Christian cross, discovered by Boudet (circa 1886) during one of his excavations at Rennes-les-Bains: , from the article by Paul Courrent in Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude, Tome XXXVIII, 1934, plate next to page 244.
1837 births
1915 deaths
People from Aude
19th-century Roman Catholic priests
20th-century Roman Catholic priests
19th-century French writers
French philologists
Priory of Sion hoax |
47792762 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stina%20Ehrensv%C3%A4rd | Stina Ehrensvärd | Stina Ehrensvärd is a Swedish-American entrepreneur, innovator and industrial designer. She is the founder and CEO of Yubico and co-inventor of the YubiKey authentication device.
Biography
Ehrensvärd was born in the United States. Her father, who was an architect like her mother, spent a year at the University of Washington in Seattle, undertaking research on urban planning and computer graphics. The following year, the family moved back to Lund, Sweden, where she grew up with three siblings. She went on to study industrial design at the Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. It was around this time that she met her husband-to-be Jakob Ehrensvärd, an electronics enthusiast. They now have three children.
The two began collaborating on a series of innovations combining their design and computing talents. Their first significant joint development was Cypak, an intelligent pharmaceutical packaging system that did not take off. In 2007, the couple founded Yubico, and began manufacturing the YubiKey authentication device for account logins. The YubiKey quickly gained worldwide popularity and attracted millions of users, including nine of the top ten internet companies. In 2011, the couple moved to Palo Alto to become part of the Silicon Valley IT scene.
Yubico is a leading contributor to the FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) open authentication standard (co-authored with Google), and invented the concept of having one authentication device access any number of online services with no shared secrets. Under Ehrensvärd’s guidance, Yubico is the innovator behind driverless one-time password (OTP) authentication, PIV smart cards with touch-to-sign, and Hardware Security Modules that sit inside standard USB-ports.
Ehrensvärd also frequently speaks on internet identity and entrepreneurship. In 2013, she was listed in the monthly magazine Inc. as one of the "10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013". The following year, Yubico was awarded the Swedish Innovation Award, and in 2016, she was awarded the KTH Great Prize, one of the most prestigious innovation and entrepreneur awards in Sweden.
In 2013, Ehrensvärd was interviewed by the business magazine The Next Woman about using the YubiKey for the first FIDO U2F pilot with Google. When asked if there was anything she wished to share with the community, she revealed: "We women are trained in our DNA to please. I have stopped trying to please everyone, but to instead follow my dreams."
Ehrensvärd continues to work towards her vision of bringing FIDO U2F to the masses, having one single YubiKey to an unlimited number of services, and making secure login easy and available for everyone.
Ehrensvärd's company, Yubico, is also a supporter of the Hong Kong protests, having donated 500 encryption keys to the activists.
References
1967 births
Living people
Businesspeople from Seattle
American people of Swedish descent
Swedish business executives
Swedish women business executives
Swedish designers
Konstfack alumni |
47794277 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty%20Easy%20privacy | Pretty Easy privacy | pretty Easy privacy (p≡p or pEp) is a pluggable data encryption and verification system, which provides automatic cryptographic key management through a set of libraries (providing p≡p adapters for application developers' used programming languages and development environments) for written digital communications. Its main goal is to turn the default in written digital communications towards end-to-end encryption for all users in the easiest way possible and on all channels they use already today, including e-mails, SMS, or other types of messages.
It exists as a plugin for Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird and also as a mobile app for Android and iOS. p≡p also works under Microsoft Windows, Unix-like and, Mac OS X operating systems. Its cryptographic functionality is handled by an open-source p≡p engine relying on already existing cryptographic implementations in software like GnuPG, a modified version of netpgp (used only in iOS), and (as of p≡p v2.0) GNUnet.
In its default configuration, p≡p does not rely on a web of trust or any form of centralized trust infrastructure, but instead lets users verify each other's authenticity by comparing cryptographic fingerprints in the form of natural language strings, which the p≡p developers have chosen to call "trustwords".
pretty Easy privacy was first released in 2016. All source code of software already released, that is of p≡p engine, adapters, apps and addons (including Microsoft Outlook) are free and open-source software.
In March 2021 it was revealed that the company behind pEp paid for fake reviews for their apps.
Design principles
Above all, p≡p – contrary to existing cryptographic solutions – shall be easy to install, use and understand. Furthermore, for their communications, p≡p users do not depend on any specific platform, message transport system (SMS, email, XMPP, etc.), or centrally provided client–server or "cloud" infrastructures: p≡p is fully peer-to-peer by design.
Keys are exchanged opportunistically by transferring via email.
Enigmail support
Enigmail announced its support for the new "pretty Easy privacy" (p≡p) encryption scheme in a joint Thunderbird extension to be released in December 2015.Patrick Brunschwig, head of Enigmail himself, announced to have p≡p core functionality implemented in Enigmail during October 2016, ready for Mozilla Festival then taking place in London.
In July 2020, Thunderbird 78 dropped Enigmail support.
ISOC support
Internet Society Switzerland Chapter (ISOC-CH) and the Swiss p≡p foundation teamed up to provide a practical solution, namely to implement privacy-enhancing standards at the basic level of Internet protocols and document them in the work of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the main organization creating voluntary standards to maintain and improve the usability and interoperability of the Internet.
See also
GNUnet
GNU Privacy Guard
OpenPGP
References
External links
Official p≡p foundation website
Official Manual
Cryptographic software
Security |
47796548 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaryllo | Amaryllo | Amaryllo Inc. is a multinational company founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, operating in AI as a Service market. It develops biometric robotic technologies, real-time data mining, a camera robot, fast object recognition, an encrypted P2P network, and flexible cloud storage.
Amaryllo developed and acquired patents for a new type of robotic cameras that is claimed to "talk, hear, sense, recognize human faces, and track intruders". It also claims to have made the world's first security robot based on the WebRTC protocol, iCamPRO FHD, and won the 2015 CES Best of Innovation Award under Embedded Technology category. Its home security robots claim to employ 256-bit encryption and run on the WebRTC protocol. Amaryllo products are sold in over 100 countries across 6 continents.
History
Amaryllo revealed its first smart home security products at Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA) 2013 with a Skype-enabled IP camera called iCam HD. Amaryllo announced its second Skype-certified smart home product, iBabi HD, at CES 2014. The company was chosen as a "Cool Vendor" by Gartner in Connected Home 2014. Amaryllo introduced WebRTC-based smart home products after Microsoft terminated embedded Skype services in mid 2014. Since then, Amaryllo has been developing a camera robots with auto-tracking and facial recognition technologies. Its camera robots, ATOM AR3 and ATOM AR3S, were introduced in late 2016. It focuses on wired and wireless technology based on AI services.
Biometric Robotic Technologies
Facial Recognition
Amaryllo debuted its facial recognition technologies on the new auto-tracking model, ATOM at IFA 2016. ATOM is designed to recognize human faces from learning faces. It claims to take 0.5 seconds to detect a human face and another 0.5 second to identify a person, totaling 1 second to recognize a human face. It can recognize over 100 people simultaneously. ASUS SmartHome platform has integrated ATOM.
Embedded Auto-Tracking
Amaryllo uses a multi-core processor embedded in cameras to make tracking systems in single units. Amaryllo security drones act as individual security robots to track moving objects without many commands from remote computers. With a 1920 x 1080 resolution, they claim to be able to track intruders over 30 feet away. Infrared lights are aesthetically hidden by a mask and are activated when the environment becomes dark, so that they can manage to work in darkness.
Multiple Sensor Network
The drones have multiple motion sensors around them for "360-degree" tracking, once a sensor is triggered, embedded CPUs will guide the drones to turn to the spotted direction to follow objects. This can use multiple cameras in a single unit to reduce cost. These robots even claim to "talk to intruders if they are spotted" and track intruders.
Object Recognition
Amaryllo develops cloud-based artificial intelligence with its camera robots to recognize objects like faces, human body, vehicle, animals, airplanes, etc.,. It uses "real-time picture frame analysis" to identify over 100 human faces within seconds. Once a human-like face is recognized, robots deliver face snapshots to smart devices. This patent-pending method claims to eliminate possible false alerts generated by Passive infrared sensors.
Interactive Services
Amaryllo robots are linked to Google Services. These robots can alertabout emails, appointments, say "Hello", "Good Morning", "Good Afternoon", etc. when they detect events like motion, audio, or face detection pre-determined by users. They are wirelessly connected to networks, so they are aware of local time and can report time on an hourly fashion, acting as a regular clock. More interactive voice communications are reported.
P2P Communications and Cloud Service
Dynamic P2P Server
Amaryllo was the first to "establish global Peer-to-Peer (P2P) server based on WebRTC protocol in smart home service". Amaryllo Live is a plug-in-free H.264-based browser service to access their cameras over the Internet. It runs on WebRTC protocol and was initially supported by Firefox. Other browsera have vowed to support the WebRTC H.264-based codec.
Video Alert
Amaryllo offers free and paid cloud storage plans including video alerts for urgent video messages from smart devices. Amaryllo launched Urgent Home Care Service with an introduction of iCare FHD, which give alerts based on remote devices. It can detect faces and sends real-time face alert video to family members.
Data Analytics Service
Soteria
Amaryllo expanded its business to B2B smart retailers by introducing Soteria service in 2018, which claims to "employ biometric analytics cameras with cloud intelligence".
Amaryllo Cloud Storage (ACS)
Amaryllo Cloud is Amaryllo's dedicated cloud storage service, which began in January, 2021. The service is available on Windows, Android, Linux, and iOS via browser or Amaryllo Cloud App. The service is also scheduled to be available in VR via Metaverse starting 2022.
Account Options
Amaryllo Cloud offers multiple account types including free accounts and monthly, yearly, and lifetime storage plans.
Free Accounts - 10GB.
Monthly Plans - 100GB to 10TB.
Annual Plans - 100GB to 10TB.
Lifetime Plans - 50GB to 10TB.
Features
Users can share storage with up to nine other people and it claims to offer unlimited bandwidth.
Encryption
Amaryllo Cloud claims to use "AES 256-bit encryption", the claim not being independently verifiable due to Amaryllo intentionally hiding the source code of their closed-source products.
References
Robotics
Home automation companies |
47825086 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%20data | Dark data | Dark data is data which is acquired through various computer network operations but not used in any manner to derive insights or for decision making. The ability of an organisation to collect data can exceed the throughput at which it can analyse the data. In some cases the organisation may not even be aware that the data is being collected. IBM estimate that roughly 90 percent of data generated by sensors and analog-to-digital conversions never get used.
In an industrial context, dark data can include information gathered by sensors and telematics.
Organizations retain dark data for a multitude of reasons, and it is estimated that most companies are only analyzing 1% of their data. Often it is stored for regulatory compliance and record keeping. Some organizations believe that dark data could be useful to them in the future, once they have acquired better analytic and business intelligence technology to process the information. Because storage is inexpensive, storing data is easy. However, storing and securing the data usually entails greater expenses (or even risk) than the potential return profit.
Professor David Hand of Imperial College London also uses the term to refer to data that are missing: Dark data are data you don't have.
Analysis
A lot of dark data is unstructured, which means that the information is in formats that may be difficult to categorise, be read by the computer and thus analysed. Often the reason that business does not analyse their dark data is because of the amount of resources it would take and the difficulty of having that data analysed. According to Computer Weekly, 60% of organisations believe that their own business intelligence reporting capability is "inadequate" and 65% say that they have "somewhat disorganised content management approaches".
Relevance
Useful data may become dark data after it becomes irrelevant, as it is not processed fast enough. This is called "perishable insights" in "live flowing data". For example, if the geolocation of a customer is known to a business, the business can make offer based on the location, however if this data is not processed immediately, it may be irrelevant in the future. According to IBM, about 60 percent of data loses its value immediately.
Storage
According to the New York Times, 90% of energy used by data centres is wasted. If data was not stored, energy costs could be saved. Furthermore, there are costs associated with the underutilisation of information and thus missed opportunities. According to Datamation, "the storage environments of EMEA organizations consist of 54 percent dark data, 32 percent redundant, obsolete and trivial data and 14 percent business-critical data. By 2020, this can add up to $891 billion in storage and management costs that can otherwise be avoided."
The continuous storage of dark data can put an organisation at risk, especially if this data is sensitive. In the case of a breach, this can result in serious repercussions. These can be financial, legal and can seriously hurt an organisation's reputation. For example, a breach of private records of customers could result in the stealing of sensitive information, which could result in identity theft. Another example could be the breach of the company's own sensitive information, for example relating to research and development. These risks can be mitigated by assessing and auditing whether this data is useful to the organisation, employing strong encryption and security and finally, if it is determined to be discarded, then it should be discarded in a way that it becomes unretrievable.
Future
It is generally considered that as more advanced computing systems for analysis of data are built, the higher the value of dark data will be. It has been noted that "data and analytics will be the foundation of the modern industrial revolution". Of course, this includes data that is currently considered "dark data" since there are not enough resources to process it. All this data that is being collected can be used in the future to bring maximum productivity and an ability for organisations to meet consumers' demand. Technology advancements are helping to leverage this dark data affordably, thanks to young and innovative companies such as Datumize, Veritas or Lucidworks. Furthermore, many organisations do not realise the value of dark data right now, for example in healthcare and education organisations deal with large amounts of data that could create a significant "potential to service students and patients in the manner in which the consumer and financial services pursue their target population".
References
Data analysis
Data collection
Databases
Computer data storage |
47889686 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mynigma | Mynigma | Mynigma (also known as M) is an email client with built-in encryption. It is free for personal use.
The Name “Mynigma” derives from the ancient Greek „Ainigma“ (αἴνιγμα, „Riddle“).
Functionality
Mynigma's core feature is an encryption mechanism that activates automatically when both parties use the client.
With its focus on usability and automation, Mynigma aims to make encryption available specifically to non-technical users.
Platforms
A proof-of-concept app is currently available for Mac and iOS. The most recent version, as well as an Outlook plug-in, are in closed beta. Programs for other platforms like Android are also being developed.
Awards
In 2015, Mynigma received the CeBIT Innovation Award for its unique approach to combining security with usability. The company also finished runner-up in the Gründerpreis der Berliner Sparkasse competition.
Name changes
Due to possible confusion with the meanwhile ceased instant messenger MyEnigma, the program was renamed M in March 2015. Following the announcement of Facebook M in August 2015, the name was changed back to Mynigma.
Privacy
The personal-use version of the program is peer-to-peer. As it does not connect to a central server, it collects no user or usage data.
Security
Mynigma uses end-to-end encryption. The keys required for decryption are stored only on the users' devices.
The encryption format is public and the program's source code is available under a GPL licence.
It uses the algorithms RSA (4096 bit, OAEP padding), AES-128 (CBC with random IV) and SHA-512. Its crypto container is provably CCA secure and protects subject lines as well as message body and attachments.
Man-the-middle prevention
Like any trust-on-first-use system, Mynigma may be subject to a man-in-the-middle attack. This can be prevented by comparing a fingerprint (e.g. over the phone) or scanning a QR code.
Press coverage
Mynigma has been featured in various national newspapers, including Tagesspiegel, FAZ and Die Welt. It appears in the sixth issue of The Hundert magazine.
References
Email clients |
47900503 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry%20Priv | BlackBerry Priv | The BlackBerry Priv is a slider smartphone developed by BlackBerry Limited. Following a series of leaks, it was officially announced by BlackBerry CEO John Chen on September 25, 2015, with pre-orders opening on October 23, 2015, for a release on November 6, 2015.
The Priv is the first BlackBerry-branded smartphone that does not run the company's proprietary BlackBerry OS or BlackBerry 10 (BB10) platforms. It instead uses Android, customized with features inspired by those on BlackBerry phones, and security enhancements. With its use of Android—one of two smartphone platforms that significantly impacted BlackBerry's early dominance in the smartphone industry—the company sought to leverage access to the larger ecosystem of software available through the Google Play Store (as opposed to BlackBerry 10 devices, which were limited to native BB10 apps from BlackBerry World and Android apps from the third-party Amazon Appstore running in a compatibility subsystem), in combination with a slide-out physical keyboard and privacy-focused features.
The BlackBerry Priv received mixed reviews. Critics praised the Priv's user experience for incorporating BlackBerry's traditional, productivity-oriented features on top of the standard Android experience, including a notifications feed and custom e-mail client. Some critics felt that the device's physical keyboard did not perform as well as those on previous BlackBerry devices, and that the Priv's performance was not up to par with other devices using the same system-on-chip. The Priv was also criticized for being more expensive than similarly equipped devices in its class.
Development
While BlackBerry was dominant in the early smartphone market, partially due to a large market share within the enterprise and governmental markets, the company had struggled in recent years due to the worldwide statistical dominance of the plethora of Android smartphones, and Apple Inc. and its iPhone line, the biggest maker of Android devices being Samsung Electronics. By June 2015, the company's market share in the U.S. consumer market had fallen to 1.2%. Facing a struggling ecosystem for native, third-party software on BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry added a compatibility layer for Android software to the OS, and allowed developers to repackage their Android apps for distribution on BlackBerry World. Later versions added the ability for users to manually install Android app packages. Beginning with the BlackBerry Passport, Amazon Appstore was bundled with BlackBerry 10 to provide an additional source of third-party Android software. BlackBerry CEO John S. Chen hoped that Amazon's own smartphone, the Fire Phone, would bolster the adoption of the Amazon store and attract more major developers to it, and in turn, BlackBerry's ecosystem. However, the Fire Phone was a commercial failure, which led to BlackBerry's decision to develop an Android phone of its own.
In early 2014, BlackBerry's device head Ron Louks proposed that the company construct an Android device. Company officials, including Chen, showed concerns over the project, as they believed the platform was not secure enough. However, Louks gained support for the project after outlining plans for hardware-based security. At Mobile World Congress 2015, BlackBerry's device head Ron Louks briefly presented a non-functioning prototype of a new, BlackBerry 10 phone that featured a sliding keyboard and a screen curved across both sides, similar to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge that was unveiled during the same convention. In July 2015, new images of the curved device leaked under the codename "Venice"; unlike the version presented at MWC, it was now shown to be running Android 5.0 "Lollipop" rather than BlackBerry 10. Information about the device's software leaked in August 2015, showing a "stock" Android experience augmented with ports of features and apps from BB10, such as BlackBerry Hub.
In response to the leaks, Chen officially confirmed during a September 2015 earnings call that BlackBerry would release a high-end Android-based device, now known as the Priv (standing for both "privilege" and "privacy"), in late 2015. Chen felt that the decision to produce an Android phone was to help BlackBerry's device business sustain itself, saying that "we have some really committed diehards. I respect that there's a lot of heritage here, a lot of pride. If the math doesn't add up, the math doesn't add up. We could keep the pride and die hungry or we can eat well and not so proud, maybe. So I chose to eat well. It's good for the company to continue to have a shot at building handsets." He also argued that the decision was meant to "[take] advantage of what the industry can offer", whilst continuing to leverage BlackBerry's "core strength".
BlackBerry promoted certain security enhancements made to the build of Android bundled with the Priv, which include utilizing features of its SoC to embed unchangeable cryptographic keys in the device hardware which are used to validate critical boot components, thus establishing a "root of trust" designed to foil attempts to tamper with the OS. Additionally, kernel security enhancements are mentioned. (Provided by grsecurity) BlackBerry also promoted that storage encryption would be enabled by default on the Priv, as well as a general company commitment to timely patch releases for known Android security vulnerabilities, subject to carrier approval.
The company stated that BlackBerry 10 devices would continue to co-exist alongside Android-based devices; BlackBerry COO Marty Beard explained that BlackBerry 10 is able to meet "very high-end security needs" that cannot currently be met by Android, while Chen reported that the platform has seen adoption in enterprise and governmental markets. Chen stated that he would consider dropping BlackBerry 10 if his company were able to port all of its security features to Android. However, BlackBerry has not released any new BlackBerry 10-powered devices since, and discontinued its BlackBerry Classic in July 2016.
Specifications
Hardware
The Priv features a , 1440p AMOLED display, which is slightly curved around the horizontal sides of the device. The rear of the device is coated in a "glass weave" material. The screen can be slid up to reveal a hardware keyboard; similar to the BlackBerry Passport, the keyboard is touch-sensitive and can register sliding gestures across its keys for scrolling, text selection, and autocomplete suggestions. a bezel on the left acts as a power button whilst two bezels on the right act as volume up/down buttons separately. Unlike the Passport, the shorter, shallower key can only be used as a mute button (on the passport this key called up the assistant). The Priv utilizes a hexa-core Snapdragon 808 system-on-chip with 3 GB of RAM, consisting of four low-power Cortex-A53 cores and two Cortex-A57 cores, and includes a non-removable 3420 mAh battery which BlackBerry claims can last for 22-and-a-half hours of "mixed use". The Priv includes 32 GB of internal storage, with the option to expand the amount of available storage using a microSD card up to 2 TB in size. The device features an 18-megapixel rear-facing camera with phase detection autofocus and optical image stabilization, and a 2-megapixel front camera.
Software
The Priv shipped with Android 5.1.1 "Lollipop" a month after Android Marshmallow was launched, using a "stock" user experience customized with additional features and BlackBerry-developed apps. BlackBerry Hub (which originates from BlackBerry 10) aggregates notifications and content from multiple sources and allows for granular management of messages and "snoozing" based on time, location or network availability. Hub can also be accessed alongside BlackBerry Search and Google Search options when swiping from the bottom of the screen. The "Productivity Edge" feature allows a tab to be shown on either the left or right curve of the display, which can be dragged out to display an agenda screen. A progress bar can also be displayed on an edge when the device is charging. An application's home screen widget can be made available from its respective shortcut icon by swiping, which displays the widget as a pop-up window. The DTEK app allows users to view an overview of the security and privacy status of the device based on best practices, and provide notifications when apps attempt to access sensitive information or permissions. The Priv also integrates with the pre-existing Android for Work suite, which allows personal and work-oriented data on a device to be segregated (similarly to the BlackBerry Balance features on BB10).
In late-April 2016, BlackBerry began to release an upgrade to Android 6.0 "Marshmallow"; along with features added to the core Android platform (which includes a new permissions system, and systems to reduce background activity when the device is not being physically handled to conserve battery power), it adds S/MIME, Slack, Skype, and Pinterest support to BlackBerry Hub, slide input on the physical keyboard, faster autofocus, and 24 fps and 120 fps video recording modes.
The Priv was not updated to Android 7.0 "Nougat". Regular security updates ended in December 2017, although out-of-band updates would still be released in case of critical vulnerabilities.
Reception
The Priv received mixed reviews. The Verge felt that the Priv's design was "quite good", noting that the thinness of the device's two halves averted it from feeling "top-heavy" when its keyboard was in use. The Wall Street Journal described the frame and curved screen as being "a pleasure to hold and look at." Ars Technica was critical of the device's overall build quality, with its back cover described as feeling "spongy" its sliding mechanism described as being "scratchy" and "friction-filled", while its curved screen was considered a "rather useless gimmick" that was inappropriate for the device's target market. Ars Technica also panned the hardware mute button for being "counterintuitive", as it does not mute the device unless it is already playing audio, otherwise triggering the system volume controls. The hardware keyboard received mixed reviews. The Wall Street Journal described the keyboard as being the "smartphone equivalent of a Colonial butter churn", noting that, although it was faster to type on in comparison to virtual keyboards, the BlackBerry Classic had a larger and wider keyboard. Ars Technica felt it was "unpleasant" to use due to its size, flat keys and how it interacts with the OS. PC Magazine described its display as being "beautiful", while Ars Technica felt that it had "grainy" color reproduction.
In regards to performance, PC Magazine described the Priv as having "[benchmarked] like [an LG G4] that's been throttled down after some gaming", noting that its AnTuTu scores were lower than those of the Nexus 6P and Samsung Galaxy S6. It also noted that while it wasn't "technically" unresponsive, "there are some complex animations and missed touch or typing inputs that might make you feel like it is". The Wall Street Journal felt that the Priv felt "inexcusably slow" at times, reporting instances of slow or unresponsive apps. The battery life was praised, with The Wall Street Journal remarking that it "outran" the Nexus 5X, 6P and iPhone 6S, while PC Magazine credited its aggressive suppression of background activity as improving its standby battery life, stating that it survived a weekend of use with 25% capacity still remaining. In contrast, The Verge and Ars Technica claimed they were unable to reach the device's advertised battery life. PC Magazine praised the Priv's call quality, noting that it had a clear microphone and "delivers very loud maximum speakerphone and earpiece volume with zero distortion or wobble." The Priv's rear-facing camera was criticized for having autofocus issues and for producing washed-out images with poor contrast and low-light performance.
Ars Technica approved of the phone's software for staying close to Android's default user experience while providing optional enhancements, but noted that it did not ship with the latest version of Android. BlackBerry Hub was also praised by The Verge allowing users to "filter all of [their notifications] in a million different ways to get super productive views of what you need to get done really quickly", but criticized for not supporting all services and for not allowing users to archive messages from Gmail within the interface. PC Magazine noted that some of the features BlackBerry added to Android could be accomplished with widgets on other devices. The Wall Street Journal felt that most of the enhancements to the OS were useful and the email interface was "[trumping] all others when it comes to formatting options", although it was slower than the Gmail app. The focus on user privacy was described as "not running very deep"; although the DTEK app and its privacy suggestions were well received, it was noted that most of the improvements to privacy and security were not exclusive to the Priv and that the hardened kernel, while making the phone more secure in theory, had not been externally audited. PC Magazine similarly questioned the security features, noting that Android "Marshmallow" allows app permissions to be revoked individually (a function not implemented by DTEK) and supports device encryption, and that using Google services requires users to agree to data collection by the company to begin with.
The Priv was also criticized for its high price in comparison to other recent "flagship" phones with better specifications. In conclusion, while commending BlackBerry for being in "way better shape with the Priv than it was with any of its BB10 devices", the Priv was ultimately described by Ars Technica as being "passable" and recommended the Nexus 6P as a cheaper alternative. The Wall Street Journal felt that the Priv was "a really good phone for people who want a [hardware] keyboard and a more secure Android experience", but that it "isn't going to put BlackBerry back on top again". The Verge felt that the Priv was a "remarkable" debut for Android on BlackBerry hardware, albeit marred by its performance issues.
Sales
BlackBerry did not provide specific sales numbers for the Priv, only stating in April 2016 that it had sold a total of 650,000 devices during the fiscal quarter ending February 29, 2016, and that these numbers were down from its original projection of 800,000. An unnamed AT&T executive stated to CNET that a large number of customers were returning the device, and that the company believed BlackBerry had priced the Priv too high.
See also
BlackBerry Torch, a previous line of slider smartphones produced by BlackBerry Limited
References
External links
Android (operating system) devices
Priv
Mobile phones with an integrated hardware keyboard
Mobile phones with 4K video recording
Mobile phones introduced in 2015
Discontinued smartphones
Slider phones |
47947460 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOMA%20Messenger | SOMA Messenger | SOMA Messenger is a cross-platform instant messaging and communication application that specializes in video calls and voice calls for smartphones. Users can also send each other text messages, emoticons, images, videos, voice messages, contacts, user location as well as create group chats, group video calls and conference calls.
It was first released in July 2015, and grew 10 million users within 30 days of its release, making it one of the fastest growing messaging apps globally. As of 1st July 2020, the app is no longer available for iOS or Android.
On August 2015, it was the most downloaded app on both iOS and Android in every country in the Middle East.
SOMA Messenger is headquartered in San Francisco, California with branch offices in China and the United Arab Emirates, with Latin America and Europe offices opening soon. SOMA Messenger has a total of 35 employees globally.
Etymology
The name of the software SOMA stands for “Simple Optimized Messaging App”. It's also a reference to the Soma (South of Market) district of San Francisco, California.
History
Instanza Inc. was founded in 2011 in Harvard University to address the problem of communicating with people across different time zones. It was one of the first startups incubated in the Harvard Innovation Lab just outside Boston.
At the time, they developed the communication app Coco Voice and 4 years later, they launched SOMA Messenger, a messenger for the global community. It offered a broader set of user-friendly communication tools that were focused on consumer security and privacy.
Technical
SOMA Messenger launched as the world's fastest messenger app, delivering high quality voice, video calls and text messaging with a wide range of other communications features and capabilities with no buffering.
SOMA Messenger uses proprietary distributed server technology with servers strategically placed in multiple countries to provide fast speeds and stability. In addition to making voice and video calls more stable, SOMA Messenger's distributed server infrastructure allows for voice and video calls to be accessed in high quality in almost every country in the world. Each interaction on SOMA Messenger is handled by a server in the nearest country to the user.
Features
SOMA Messenger supports unlimited free service with no additional charges for international calls or messages. After downloading SOMA Messenger, users can invite their friends to also sign up for the service. Users can send text messages to their contacts even if the recipient hasn't downloaded the app with these messages including a link for them to download SOMA Messenger as well.
Users can select from a variety of template status messages, and can track their usage statistics via their profile. Users can see the number of messages, calls and photos they've sent and received.
In November 2015, SOMA Messenger announced that it launched free, high-quality group video and voice calls on mobile, for up to four participants. The new video and voice features function cohesively within a group communication, allowing users the choice to have the conversation via text, voice, video, or combination of all three.
SOMA Messenger supports text message, push-to-talk voice message, video message, emoticons as well as contact and location sharing.
SOMA Messenger supports group messaging with up to 500 people.
SOMA Messenger supports end-to-end encryption for all messages and communication using a cryptographic protocol based on 2048-bit-RSA and 256-bit-AES.
Security
SOMA Messenger has strict security policies that apply to all messages, including voice and video calls, texts, images, or voice messages, everywhere in the world. All messages and calls are encrypted using a combination of 2048-bit RSA and 256-bit AES.
All messages, no matter where they come from or where they are sent, are permanently deleted from SOMA Messenger's servers immediately after delivery. Undelivered messages expire and are permanently deleted after seven days from the server. Messages are never stored on SOMA Messenger's servers or in any cloud after they are deleted, and phone numbers stored in users address books cannot be seen by SOMA Messenger. Chat history and message content is stored only on a user's device.
On September 2015, SOMA Messenger released security updates for Android and iOS. The updates include optimization of the messenger's secure encryption algorithm. The makers claim it is “safe enough for the CIA.”
Privacy
SOMA Messenger asks for only the essential user permissions required for the app to function. These permissions are requested in order for the app's basic functions to work such as sending photos, recording voice messages, voice and video chatting, and location sharing. End-to-end encryption is used for maximum privacy and SOMA Messenger stores the key only on a user's device. SOMA Messenger does not have access to users’ address books or phone numbers.
On September 2015, SOMA Messenger made an update to the app's user permission requests by removing all redundant user permissions. As of the update, SOMA Messenger requires less permissions than similar messaging services such as WhatsApp and Skype.
See also
Comparison of instant messaging clients
References
External links
Official Website
Android (operating system) software
IOS software
Instant messaging clients
Cross-platform mobile software
Communication software
Companies based in California
Companies based in San Francisco |
48005845 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMEMO | OMEMO | OMEMO is an extension to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) for multi-client end-to-end encryption developed by Andreas Straub. According to Straub, OMEMO uses the Double Ratchet Algorithm "to provide multi-end to multi-end encryption, allowing messages to be synchronized securely across multiple clients, even if some of them are offline". The name "OMEMO" is a recursive acronym for "OMEMO Multi-End Message and Object Encryption".
It is an open standard based on the Double Ratchet Algorithm and the Personal Eventing Protocol (PEP, XEP-0163).
OMEMO offers future and forward secrecy and deniability with message synchronization and offline delivery.
Features
In comparison with OTR, the OMEMO protocol offers many-to-many encrypted chat, offline messages queuing, forward secrecy, file transfer, verifiability and deniability at the cost of slightly larger message size overhead.
History
The protocol was developed and first implemented by Andreas Straub as a Google Summer of Code project in 2015. The project's goal was to implement a double-ratchet-based multi-end to multi-end encryption scheme into an Android XMPP-based instant messaging client called Conversations.
It was introduced in Conversations and submitted to the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) as a proposed XMPP Extension Protocol (XEP) in the autumn of 2015 and got accepted as XEP-0384 in December 2016.
In July 2016, the ChatSecure project announced that they would implement OMEMO in the next releases. ChatSecure v4.0 supports OMEMO and was released on January 17, 2017.
A first experimental release of an OMEMO plugin for the cross-platform XMPP client Gajim was made available on December 26, 2015.
In June 2016, the non-profit computer security consultancy firm Radically Open Security published an analysis of the OMEMO protocol.
Client support
Selected clients supporting OMEMO (full list of clients also exists):
BeagleIM (macOS)
ChatSecure (iOS)
Conversations (Android)
Converse.js (Browser-based)
Dino (Linux, macOS)
Gajim via official plugin (Linux, Windows, BSD)
Monal (iOS)
Movim (Browser-based)
Psi via official plugin (Linux, Windows, macOS)
Psi+ via official plugin (Linux, Windows, macOS, Haiku, FreeBSD)
libpurple clients such as Pidgin or Finch via experimental plugin
Adium via an Xtra based on the libpurple plugin
Profanity via experimental plugin (BSD, Linux, macOS, Windows)
SiskinIM (iOS)
Library support
Smack supports OMEMO using the two modules smack-omemo and smack-omemo-signal
XMPPFramework (macOS, iOS, tvOS) supports OMEMO via the OMEMOModule extension when used in conjunction with the SignalProtocol-ObjC library.
References
External links
Homepage
XEP-0384: OMEMO Encryption (Experimental)
Python library for implementing OMEMO in other clients
OMEMO protocol implementation in C
OMEMO Top - OMEMO support toplist in instant message clients
Free security software
Cryptographic protocols
Internet privacy software
Instant messaging
XMPP |
48126826 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PubNub | PubNub | PubNub is a Realtime Communication Platform and realtime infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) company based in San Francisco, California. The company makes products for software and hardware developers to build realtime web, mobile, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
PubNub's primary product is a realtime publish/subscribe messaging API built on their global data stream network which is made up of a replicated network of at least 15 data centers located in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. The network currently serves over 330 million devices and streams over a trillion messages per month.
History
PubNub was founded in 2010 by Stephen Blum and Todd Greene. PubNub raised $4.5 million in Series A funding from Relay Ventures and TiE Angels in March 2012. They received their $11 million Series B round of funding in September 2013 from Scale Venture Partners, Relay Ventures and TiE Angels. In July 2015, PubNub received their $20 million Series C round of funding led by Sapphire Ventures. In September 2016, PubNub closed a $6 million venture round led by Cisco Investments and Ericsson. In April 2019, PubNub received their $23 million Series D round of funding, adding Hewlett Packard Enterprise to the list of investors.
Technology
PubNub utilizes a Publish/Subscribe model for realtime data streaming and device signaling and supports all of the capabilities of WebSockets, Socket.IO, SignalR, WebRTC Data Channel and other streaming protocols. PubNub provides SDKs for over 70 different programming languages and environments including JavaScript, iOS, and Android, as well as JavaScript frameworks such as AngularJS, Ember.js, and Backbone.js. PubNub also provides client libraries for board platforms including Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Texas Instruments, and Microchip.
Functions a set of customizable microservices that give developers a simple way to add code and deploy features for realtime apps.
Publish/Subscribe Messaging provides realtime data streaming and device signaling, and includes built in AES encryption and optional TLS/SSL encryption. The atomic components that make up a data stream are API Keys, Messages, and Channels. This feature handles channels in a lightweight manner, allowing software developers to create an unlimited number of channels for any set of API keys without first declaring the channel.
Online Presence Detection provides tracking of online and offline status of users and devices in realtime. Presence events are triggered when a connected device subscribes or unsubscribes from a channel, or times out. The Presence API also includes a “state” feature allowing for the persistent tracking of any name-value pair a software developer specifies, such as a “typing” event indicator in a basic chat application.
Access Management provides fine grain read and write access control on a per user, device, or channel basis. This adds an extra layer of security and enables the syndication of streams by providing authorization to individual users, as well as grant/revoke permissions at the channel or key level.
Data Stream Controller multiplexes individual data streams as a single persistent connection, and it centralizes control of the creation and modification of groups of data channels at the server level.
Storage & Playback stores messages as they are published to a data channel, and retrieves them from high-availability storage clusters at a later time. Data streams can also be replayed as they were broadcast in realtime.
Mobile Push Notifications bridges native Pub/Sub Messaging API publishing with third-party push notification services including Google Android GCM, Apple iOS APNS, and Microsoft Windows Phone MSNP. The developing, configuring, and maintaining of server side components for third-party providers is provided by the PubNub API.
Awards and recognition
Top 10 Enterprise Cloud Apps and Services of 2011
10 Hot Technology Startups For November
10 Hot Internet of Things Startups
10 Wearables and IoT Companies To Watch In 2015
Best Enterprise Support Solution: PubNub
Internet of Things (IoT) Security Silver Winner
References
External links
Official Website
Providers of services to on-line companies
American companies established in 2010
Online companies of the United States
Companies based in San Francisco
Internet of things companies
2010 establishments in California |
48167307 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPSW | IPSW | IPSW, iPhone Software, is a file format used to install iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, HomePod, and most recently, macOS firmware for devices equipped with Apple silicon. All Apple devices share the same IPSW file format for iOS firmware and their derivatives, allowing users to flash their devices through Finder or iTunes on macOS or Windows, respectively. Users can flash Apple silicon Macs through Apple Configurator 2.
Structure
The .ipsw file itself is a compressed archive file (renamed Zip archive) containing at least three Apple Disk Image files with one containing the root file system of the OS and two ram disks for restore and update. tvOS, audioOS and macOS also include a disk image for the recovery environment (recoveryOS).
The file also holds the kernel caches, and a "Firmware" folder which contains iBoot, LLB (Low-Level Bootloader), iBSS (iBoot Single Stage), iBEC (iBoot Epoch Change), the Secure Enclave Processor firmware, the Device Tree, Firmware Images (Apple logo, battery images, Recovery mode screen and more), baseband firmware files in .bbfw format (renamed zip file), and other firmware files.
There are two more files named "BuildManifest.plist" and "Restore.plist", both property lists that contain compatibility information and SHA-256 hashes for different components.
BuildManifest.plist is sent to Apple's TSS server and checked in order to obtain SHSH blobs before every restore. Without SHSH blobs, the device will refuse to restore, thus making downgrades very difficult to achieve.
Security and rooting
The archive is not password-protected, but iBoot, LLB, iBEC, iBSS, iBootData and the Secure Enclave Processor firmware images inside it are encrypted with AES. Until iOS 10, all the firmware files (including the root file system and Restore and Update ramdisks) were encrypted. While Apple does not release these keys, they can be extracted using different iBoot or bootloader exploits, such as limera1n (created by George Hotz, more commonly known as geohot). Since then, many tools were created for the decryption and modification of the root file system.
Government data access
After the 2015 San Bernardino attack, the FBI recovered the shooter's iPhone 5C, which belonged to the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. The FBI recovered iCloud backups from one and a half months before the shooting, and wanted to access encrypted files on the device. The U.S. government ordered Apple to produce an IPSW file that would allow investigators to brute force the passcode of the iPhone. The order used the All Writs Act, originally created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, to demand the firmware, in the same way as other smartphone manufacturers have been ordered to comply.
Tim Cook responded on the company's webpage, outlining a need for encryption, and arguing that if they produce a backdoor for one device, it would inevitably be used to compromise the privacy of other iPhone users:
References
External links
iPSW at Apple Support
iPSW at File Extensions
iPSW at The iPhone Wiki
BASEBAND files at The iPhone Wiki
IOS
Computer file formats
Archive formats |
48220724 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%20Naval%20Intelligence%20Service | German Naval Intelligence Service | The German Naval Intelligence Service (German: Marinenachrichtendienst (MND)) was the naval intelligence department of the Germany Navy and had a long history, going back to the naval aspirations of German emperor Wilhelm II in 1899.
The department had various names throughout its existence. Between 1901 and 1919, the service was called the Nachrichten-Abteilung also known as N (English: Military intelligence department) and was the naval intelligence service of the Imperial German Navy. It focused its efforts on France, the United States and above all the United Kingdom, whose Royal Navy was Germany's principal rival for naval supremacy. Its activities had little practical impact on the course of the First World War and it was dissolved in 1919 after Germany's defeat in the war. After the war, saw the establishment of the observation service (B-Dienst) in 1918–1919. In spring 1925, the Naval Intelligence Division was disbanded and did not reform until October 1934 under Theodor Arps when it was named Marinenachrichtendienst (English: Naval Intelligence Service). During the Second World War, the service underwent various re-organisations, starting as part of 2/SKL, later 4/SKL of the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM) and finally dissolved on 22 July 1945, two months after the end of hostilities.
Establishment
After the Admiralstab was established in 1899, its chief, Vice-Admiral Otto von Diederichs, sought to establish a naval intelligence department. He petitioned Kaiser Wilhelm II in January 1900 to approve the project. Although the Kaiser approved, Diederichs' plans were blocked by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz of the German Imperial Naval Office, with whom he had previously clashed over plans to expand the authority of the Admiralstab. Tirpitz simply declined to answer Diederichs' request for funds, prompting the latter to approach the Kaiser again in January 1901.
Diederichs presented a memorandum arguing that without an intelligence staff, it would be impossible for the navy to develop contingency plans for war. It needed to focus on Germany's most likely naval enemies – France, the United Kingdom and the United States – but currently had only limited means for gathering intelligence, including reviewing newspaper reports and utilising naval attachés as a source of information. The navy needed to have its own dedicated intelligence staff, modelled on the German Army's Abteilung IIIb. Diederichs asked for four staff to man the new department; one staff officer to serve as its head, with one lieutenant commander as assistant; one more officer off active duty to carry out confidential work such as couriering correspondence and paying agents; and a cartographer who could double as a photographer. It would need an annual budget of ℳ150,000 marks a year.
The Kaiser again approved the proposal and directed the Naval Office to implement it, but Tirpitz continued to obstruct Diederichs – this time by reducing his budget from the requested ℳ150,000 marks to only ℳ10,000. Nonetheless this was enough to establish the new department at the Admiralstabs headquarters at 70 Königgrätzer Straße (today's Stresemannstraße) in Berlin. Originally called the Nachrichtenbüro ("Intelligence Bureau"), it was soon renamed the Nachrichten-Abteilung or "Intelligence Department", known simply as N for short.
1901 to 1918
The Navy news service () was an educational and news analysis service of the Imperial German Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) or Admiralstab between 1901 and 1919. From 1901 it was known as the news bureau () and Intelligence Bureau (N) and was considered separate in function and form from the news service of the German Imperial Naval Office, whose function was considered a press or propaganda office of the Navy.
German signals intelligence began in 1912 with experiments using antennae attached to kites to establish British naval radio frequencies
Organisation
Before the First World War, the organisation of the Naval Intelligence Service was as follows: In the Naval Staff, there was a single naval officer: Kapitänleutnant Braune, who was responsible for all questions and problems of the intelligence service, and establishment of the naval signals intelligence network. The department soon grew in size to four members, despite Tirpitz's continued obstructions. It had three heads during its 18 years in existence. The executive head of the unit was Fritz von Prieger. The administrative heads of the news department of the Naval Staff of the Navy were:
Captain Arthur Tapken: 1901 to March 1914. Later Commander. Married to an Englishwomen.
Commander Walter Isendahl: March 1914 to February 1918. Frigate Captain.
Captain Paul Ebert: February 1918 – 1919
The director of N customarily signed documents with a capital 'N' and the first letter of his own name.
Within N, duties were divided between several subdivisions. The most important was the overseas intelligence gathering division, NI, which was managed from 1913 to 1919 by Commander (later Naval Captain) Fritz Prieger. Secretarial responsibilities were managed by naval Lieutenant Georg Stammer, who handled correspondence for N and NI and also worked for naval counter-espionage. More branches were added during the First World War, when N grew hugely in size. Although its numbers are not recorded in the surviving German archives of the period, it certainly employed hundreds of staff at the very least; its army counterpart employed over 1,100 people at its peak in 1918. One of those employed by N in a minor position was Wilhelm Canaris, who rose to become head of the Abwehr, Nazi Germany's military intelligence service. A naval counter-espionage agency called G (for Gegenspionage or counter-espionage) was spun off from N, under the authority of Paul Ebert, who was to become the news service director in 1918. A sabotage branch called NIV was established within N in the spring of 1916, operating under the cover of a commercial agency.
The news service operated in a significantly different fashion from its great rival, the British Secret Service Bureau (which later divided to become MI5 and MI6). It was directly integrated into the Admiralstab and recruited exclusively from the Imperial Navy, in contrast to its more independent and less military-oriented British counterpart. Rather than pursuing careers in the organisation, its staff would serve stints of a few years in N before rotating back out into mainstream naval careers. After Tapken left N in 1914, for instance, he continued working for the Admiralstab in various capacities and was promoted to rear-admiral during the war.
Operations
Recruitment
The primary target of the News Service was the British Royal Navy, the largest and most powerful navy of the time. From its establishment in 1901, it sought to recruit a network of agents around the world to observe the movement of foreign warships, which in practice meant principally British ships. Political considerations led the service to also focus attention on the French Navy. The organisation recruited two types of agents: fleet observers, rapporteur () or (BEs) and confidential men () or (VMs). BEs were originally intended to gather intelligence on foreign naval movements while VMs were to help supply German warships in wartime. The commanders of individual German battleships were responsible for recruiting agents in each of their ports of call. To protect agent networks, all communications with BEs were routed exclusively through "main correspondents" () or HBEs who were responsible for providing them with codes, wireless telegraphs and other secret communications equipment during periods of international tension or war.
Recruiting agents was not straightforward for N. It sought to recruit reserve German army officers working abroad, but this resulted in complaints from the army and only produced a few recruits (though this exercise did make it possible for N to recruit more agents during the war). Its army intelligence counterpart, Abteilung IIIb, was of little help; the two agencies viewed each other as rivals and were reluctant to share information or assets. The various German steamship companies, especially the Hamburg America Line (HAL), provided a valuable source of recruits. Shipping employees were regarded as ideal candidates for recruitment; they were widely traveled, often expert in naval matters and were stationed across the world. Their companies were happy to cooperate as they looked forward to receiving valuable naval contracts, while the employees themselves would enjoy exemption from conscription so that they could continue to work as naval intelligence agents. The German agent Carl Hans Lody, who spied in the UK in the early months of the First World War, was one such example of a shipping employee who had been recruited as an operative.
The German diplomatic service was also an important source of recruits, with the Admiralstab approaching German diplomats to recruit them directly or to enlist their help in recruiting others. The German foreign ministry had reservations about this activity, as it feared the consequences for its reputation if it became known that its diplomats were working for the navy, but by 1911 it had thrown its support behind the navy's efforts to recruit agents.
It was then alleged that during the early 20th century, the unit placed a troupe of fleet observers along the Russian Baltic coast built. The unit used its own agent networks, especially against the Russian Empire. To that end, the service had set up a number of bases in the Scandinavian countries. From 1912 it cooperated with the Swedish naval service to enable military reconnaissance. During 1914–1915 of the First World War, the service participated decisively in the use of the East Asia Squadron, later on the revolutionizing of Russia and Finland. [8] When the war ended, the news department of the Naval Staff, unfortunately destroyed large parts of their records inventory, a fact which today is very difficult verification of allegations contained in this paragraph.
Day-to-day operations
On the eve of the First World War, N had established a global "war intelligence system" (Kriegsnachrichtenwesen or KNW) which was intended to provide a flow of intelligence on foreign naval movements in the event of war or heightened tension. In practice, the system proved a failure. Britain cut Germany's overseas cables in August 1914, cutting off contact between N and many of its operatives abroad. In 1915 the Admiralstab instructed most of its overseas agents to discontinue their activities. In addition, the German navy's operational plans changed so frequently that it made it almost impossible to undertake long-term intelligence-gathering.
In 1914 there was no organised radio reconnaissance in the German Imperial Navy, but only a radio monitoring service – B service (B-Dienst), which was carried out from aboard the fleet ships When they began around 1907/08, to listen to the radio communications of the British Navy, the service was seeking insight on how technical communication were achieved. The News service wasn't specifically looking to achieve tactical or operational superiority, but rather to get to know the state of radio engineering development in the Royal Navy and to track it. The monitoring was carried out by Radio Station Heligoland, the vessel SMS Zieten, a fishery protection ship and a trawler for communication tests. The fact that Britain used plain language in the text and call address was not evaluated.
Proud of their technical performance, the Imperial Navy were considered naive and careless with their own key processes, and associated radio traffic. No strategy was formed to determine or investigate the purpose for which the enemy was listening to radio messages, what experience they gained from it and what countermeasures the Imperial Navy could initiate against them. The wireless operation was conducted according to internationally developed procedures. To encrypt messages you used an optical signal service, as well as radio communications, the Secret Code of Signals (German Code Book), which was valid from 1 April 1914. Most three-digit groups that signal book were the war Signalbuch key, a replacement panel, via encrypted.
Two events were particularly significant, illustrating the lack of foresight on Germany's part, with the resulting success of the enemy:
The first incident, occurred soon after the outbreak of the world war 1, when a radio officer, Wilhelm Tranow aboard the ship SMS Pommern of the German High Seas Fleet, succeeded in breaking their own cipher. His report on the subject did not result in the changing of the cipher system, merely resulting in a reprimand for himself, as he had searched into reports which were only for high level staff. The cipher system was continued in use.
The second such incident illuminates the outcomes from lack of focus on key processes. On 26 August 1914, the Imperial Navy light cruiser SMS Magdeburg was ordered to sweep for Russian reconnaissance forces in the entrance to the Gulf of Finland when dense fog closed in. It subsequently ran aground off the lighthouse at Odensholm on the Estonian coast. All attempts to re-float the ship failed. The Russian cruisers Bogatyr and Pallada appeared and shelled the stranded cruiser. The Germans destroyed the forward section of the ship, but could not complete her destruction before the Russians reached the Magdeburg'. The on-board cipher agents and code books were weighted down with lead and thrown over board but were later retrieved by Russian divers. The German code books were not destroyed; the Russians were able to recover three of the books, along with the current encryption key. They passed one copy to the British Royal Navy via a pair of Russian couriers on 13 October. The capture of the code books proved to provide a significant advantage for the Royal Navy. The cryptanalysts of Room 40, Britain's own recently created cryptanalysis department, was able to read all German naval radio traffic from then on. With the code books and cipher key, the British were able to track the movements of most German warships; this information could be passed on to the Admiral John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet. Indeed, broken radio messages would be read by Jellicoe with a delay of between 30 minutes and 1 hour, which fully explained the tactical attitude taken by the Admiralty at that time. In contrast, it took the Germans up to two weeks to crack the radio signals of the British at the Battle of Jutland. [9] This allowed the British to ambush parts of or the entire German fleet on several occasions, most successfully at the Battles of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and Jutland in May 1916.
Only in the summer of 1917, did the German Imperial Navy change the encryption key agent, so that the radio communications of the Imperial Navy could no longer be deciphered. Until this reorganisation, the British succeeded in deciphering every intercepted German message. It was said up to 2000 messages a day were read by the Room 40 cryptanalysts. Indeed, Germany still continued to believe that treachery and British secret agents were to blame.
The lack of focus on key processes, mistakes in daily operational activities and in addition, the German navy's operational plans changed so frequently that it made it almost impossible to undertake long-term intelligence-gathering; meaning that the Nachrichten-Abteilung activities made little impact on the outcome of the war. However, it should be pointed out that within the German naval intelligence service, there was no close liaison between high-level staff and the main intercept station at Neumünster, which was so necessary, which was at a great distance from the naval war staff and operated almost independently.
Interwar period (1919 to 1939)
The Nachrichten-Abteilung came to an end in 1919 after the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from having any intelligence organisation whatsoever. and the November revolution. As a result, the News Service was dissolved, with Fritz Prieger, its former head of foreign intelligence gathering, in charge of the winding-up of the agency. All monitoring, decoding and evaluation services had ceased. However, in April 1919, the organiser of the B-service, Lieutenant Braune, who the Admiralstab requested that he compile a wartime history of the previous service, was tasked with restarting the service by Rear Admiral Adolf von Trotha, and by 28 April 1919, the central office was recreated at the same time as the new German Navy, the Reichsmarine was being created. The radio intelligence service needed comparatively little budget to operate and operated on a very modest basis. The main intercept station had only three deciphering experts, with only two of them with sufficient depth of knowledge to make efficient decipher possible. An officer to take command of the operation was not appointed until 1922, but was still handicapped because the thread of continuous decipherment knowledge was broken in 1918. Of the eight men in the original team on 28 April 1919, one of them was Wilhelm Tranow, the cryptanalyst who would go on to dominate the agency and who would be so successful in breaking British cyphers including Naval Cypher.
Organisation
Central Office
The MND (German: Marinenachrichtendienst, English:Naval Communication Service) led the organisation, as they apparently had proved during the war. Staff was provided by Rear Admiral Adolf von Trotha. Under the command, naval intelligence officers at the coast radio and marine signal stations ran the message service. On the big ships, one of the radio rooms was established for the radio monitoring service. Each radio room was equipped with a radio direction finder, so that radio messages of other navies could be absorbed from there. The management of the MND was undertaken Lieutenant Martin Braune from 30 October 1919 until 28 April 1920.
In 1915 Braune had been working with Ludwig Föppl, the cryptanalysis who made the breakthrough in the decipherment of British codes and ciphers. Föppl would later go on to break the Allied Fleet Code. In April 1919, Braune restarted the Naval Intelligence service. The development of radio intelligence service during the period 1920 to 1939 was characterized by lack of funds and virtually no resources. A lack of focus by the command officer, the naval officer who was responsible for radio communications, was also responsible, in a kind of collateral duty for radio intelligence, meant little time for the service. In Autumn 1919, when Braune was reassigned, three civilians were left in charge of the service. Two of these, former sailor Wilhelm Tranow and Lothar Franke remained with Naval Intelligence until 1945
From an administration perspective, the MND was responsible to the Signals Department of the Naval Command Office (German:Marinekommandoamt) (Abbr. MKA). The B Control Centre (German:B-Leitstelle) which was the administrative and cryptographic department of the B-Dienst, shared offices with the Marine headquarters in Berlin.
Initially coastal radio stations (German:Küstenfunkstellen) were used to gather foreign naval intercepts, and later additional resources were made available to reopen Direction Finding stations (German:B-Stellen, or Peilstationen) which were more suitably located for observation work. Cryptographic work restarted with leftover British wartime signals, and by 1922, B-Dienst began the systematic observation of British signals traffic.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank, the SMS Pommern incident with Wilhelm Tranow succeeded in breaking their own cipher, SMS Magdeburg incident and the latter years of the First World War conflict, Admiral Franz von Hipper and his Chief of Staff Erich Raeder suspected that the British had been reading German Signals. After the war, evidence began to emerge on the scale with which British had compromised German naval communications. From the 1919 onwards, British publications like Naval Operations by British historian Sir Julian S. Corbett and from the memories of Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher, Admiral of the Fleet Jellicoe and Churchill were read by MND, and it was discovered how successful the British Admiralty had been in the use of radio decoding (German:Funkentzifferung), that characterized all of the operations of the German High Seas Fleet had been seen through so early, that the British Grand Fleet could react in good time. The first indication of compromised communications came from Admiral Lord of the Fleet Sir John Fisher, in his biography Memories in 1919, he wrote:
The development of the wireless has been such that you can get the direction of one who speaks and go for him; so that the German daren't open his mouth. But if he does, the message is in cypher; and it is the elucidation of the cypher which is one of the crowning glories of the Admiralty work in the late war. In my time they have never failed once in that elucidation.
In 1921, a former Tsarist naval officer, Peter Novopashenny, who would later work for B-Dienst, informed German intelligence of details concerning the SMS Magdeburg incident.
In his bestselling series, The World Crisis by Winston Churchill, the first two volumes which were published in 1923, and who has been civilian head of the Royal Navy at the start of the war stated:
At the beginning of September 1914, the German light cruiser SMS Magdeburg was wrecked in the Baltic. The body of a drowned German under-officer was picked up by the Russians a few hours later, and clasped in his bosom by arms rigid in death, were the cipher and signal books of the German Navy and the minutely squared maps of the North Sea and the Heligoland Bight. On 6 September The Russian Naval Attaché came to see me. He had received a message from Petrograd telling him what happened, and that the Russian Admiralty with the aid of the cipher and signal books had been able to decoded portions at least of the German Naval Messages. The Russians felt as a leading naval Power, the British Admiralty out to have these books and charts. [Later Churchill and Prince Louis, Of Battenberg the First Sea Lord, received the documents]
Naval Intelligence realized that mere changes to codes would not be enough, and set of a fundamental process that resulted in profound changes in the organisation and operations of the naval intelligence service in Germany and hastened the introduction of the Enigma Cipher Machine.
From 1921 to 1925, the service was temporarily moved to the Naval Academy in Flensburg-Mürwik, as the News Department (MNA) of the Imperial Navy. While at the Naval Academy, the service did not undertake any radio reconnaissance, but radio metrology, direction finding and signal training. The News Department was led by:
Lieutenant Commander Ferdinand Boehmer (29 March 1921 – 29 March 1924)
Lieutenant Commander Leo Riedel (30 March 1924 to 27 March 1925)
By moving to Keil, German radio intelligence was deprived of the direct link with Navy High Command, as well as other military departments, e.g. Ministry of Armed Forces, and lost connection with sources of intelligence which were indefensible for its operation.
From 1922 onward, the Chief of Naval Communications had a naval officer assisting him.
In the spring of 1925, the Naval Intelligence Division was disbanded. For several years there was no official navy intelligence service in Germany.
In the autumn of 1927, the scandal which would be later be called the Lohmann Affair became public. This was the secret and illegal actions of the chief of the maritime Transport Department in the Marine Line, Captain Walter Lohmann. Lohmann had promoted inter alia, the establishment of a non-official German intelligence service abroad, which was missed by the press and completely violated the Versailles Treaty. Lohmann oversaw millions of Reichsmarks worth of clandestine funding for secret Naval projects during the Weimar Republic.
With the Lohmann Affair bringing intelligence activities into the public, the Abwehr undertook an effort to combine Army and Navy signals intelligence under its control. Naval D/F sets would gather signals intelligence for the Ministry of the Reichswehr cipher bureau (German:Reichswehrministerium Chiffrierstelle), making the B Control Centre (German:B-Leitstelle) cipher centre redundant and removing an intelligence asset from the Navy. This was met with resistance and ultimately failed but resulted in the increased size of the Abwehr. In the Autumn, the Abwehr tried again, after a period of tension between Poland and Lithuania. Wanting access to the Neumünster intercept station and a naval station in southern Germany, it was ultimately rebuffed, but an offer to ensure increased links between cipher bureau units.
In the Autumn of 1929, for the first time, a naval officer was appointed as the head of the Main Intercept Station. The entire intercept staff of 10 was removed from the Navy Department and incorporated with the Torpedo and Mining Inspectorate in Kiel, which did not even have the word 'communications' in its title, reflecting the lack of understanding of Radio Intelligence. Radio Intelligence was now incorporated into Naval Communications, a completely different specialism, with little commonality. Radio Intelligence was also deprived of contact with the Navy High Command, and lost connection with other sources of intelligence which were important for its functioning. Operationally, the B Service was still receiving instruction from the MKA in Berlin, working on the development of naval code systems.
In the 1930s, Naval Captain (German:Kapitän zur See) Gustav Kleikamp, while at the Kiel News Research Institute investigated the use of Naval Intelligence techniques during the proceeding years, and particularly in the First World War. Captain Gustav Kleikamp was the former radio officer aboard the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger, and who in 1923–1926 was teacher at the marine torpedo and signalers school. In his capacity, Kleikamp authored a documentary, the 1934 Secret Service MDv 352 bulletin No.13, in which he described in detail the unwary radio use of the Imperial German Navy during World War I at length, and in which he, for the planning and management of future naval warfare stated careful preliminary work in peace was required.
Thus, the program for the re-establishment of a Navy Intelligence Service was created.
Captain Gustav Kleikamp would later, as captain of the battlecruiser, SMS Schleswig-Holstein, fire the first shots of World War II.
In the December 1933, the official B-Leitstelle returned to the Naval Command (Department A III) in Berlin as an independent department. The head of the department was Captain Theodor Arps (1 October 1934 to 31 December 1939).
The B-Leitstelle merged with the intelligence section of the naval staff, the Group Foreign Navies (German: Gruppe Fremde Marinen) and the communications department to form the Naval Communication Service (German: Marinenachrichtendienst (MND)).
In 1934, the top organisation of the Main Intercept station, or B station, numbered about 20 personnel. Two were naval officers, while two were leading decipherment analysts. The organisation of Department AIII of the Navy High Command, i.e. Naval Communications Division, was as follows:
Department AIII Section AIIIa: Communications
Section AIIIb: Radio Intelligence (plus means of development of decipherment)
Group FM: Foreign Navies
At Falshöft, the Department was now divided into the units of
Foreign Navies
Message Transfer Service
Radio Reconnaissance
The group Foreign Navies (FM), was divided into three sections, which were supplied with all incoming messages concerning Foreign Navies: the Abwehr, naval attaché, and the press and radio intelligence. Group FM started to compete with Section B, primary because the head of Department AIII (Arp) had once been head of Group FM, and had a tendency to overrate the information coming from sources other than section AIIIb.Bonatz, 1970, p. 75 Further, the department head was senior in rank to head on section B, and who insisted that this was observed. Significant friction existed between departments, with section AIIIb fighting for Independence. In 1934/36, Radio Intelligence (Section AIIIb) transferred the branch which implemented own means of decipherment was section AIIIa (Communication), reflecting a more logical and efficient department layout.
Within the High Command of the Navy (Oberkommando der Marine), the Naval Intelligence department was incorporated into the Department of Naval Warfare and Operations (3/Skl) (German:Seekriegsleitung) on 1 October 1937. At the same time, the Navy Intelligence message inspection emerged from the torpedo Inspectorate as an independent Department of the Baltic Sea naval station. The sections were now called
Navy message school
Marine Communication Facilities laboratory
Marine Communication Facilities (German: Marinenachrichtenmittel) test command
The General Navy Office (B) founded the Department of Technical Communications at the same time. It was affiliated to the Admiralty main office when the war started as the official group NWa.
Since 1933, the head of the Main Intercept Station in Section AIIIb was also, at the same time, head of Group IV in the Intelligence department of (German:Abwehr) of the Supreme Command Armed Forces (German:Reichswehrministerium).
The organisation buildup of Naval Radio Intelligence, based on plans agreed in 1934–36, was based on gaining experience on current systems. Naval radio traffic of the UK, France, Russia and Poland was monitored regularly. Faced with a numerically superior enemy, intelligence for surface units depended on B-Dienst. Analysis and decryption of messages showed that enemy systems were becoming increasingly complicated, i.e. change of frequencies, radio call signs, traffic functions, as well as change of ciphers used for codes and keys. Experience gained showed that former naval radio operators were best suited to monitoring, as they were already familiar with shipping and naval routine. Consideration was given to organising the Radio Intelligence service in a manner, so that each part of the service was sufficiently manned, such that in a time of war, only very limited reinforcements would be needed. It was known that training of suitable personnel was both time-consuming and difficult, and during wartime, only auxiliary help could be recruited. During peacetime, it resulted in the service having relatively high numbers of personnel.
Around late 1934, early 1935 Heinz Bonatz was appointed head of B-Dienst. In 1935, the Abwehr made the final effort to integrate all the signal intelligence units of the German military services but the B-Dienst rejected it.
It was calculated that the personnel requirements of the Main Intercept Stations would be about 110 men. While some success was achieved in gaining the required level of personnel, Radio Intelligence never gained independence from Naval Communications. The only achievement was to increase the size of Section AIIIb to Group status, thus equaling the status of Group FM. The Marine lacked signals personnel, which imposed serious constraints on the whole system. Before 1939, there was no formal training system for Marine personnel and training was undertaken while on duty.
The organisation of the Main Intercept Station was as follows:
The 3rd Division/Naval Operations (3/SKL) was aware that in case of war, the enemy would commit to create the greatest difficulties for the German radio reconnaissance:
He will change Mob. case the radio name and all key agents, It's gained a lot if it does not change the individual systems. This possibility, however, can be denied to a certain degree, because all experiences and the enemy a serious threat to its own messaging service created when he (...) wants to introduce completely new key systems in the event of mobilization.
So, they remained confident that the slump in the opposing key procedures in the event of an emergency would be maintained. Quite differently, however, the naval staff evaluated the security of their own key medium. In a presentation in March 1938 by Lieutenant Commander (German: Korvettenkapitän) Fritz Bassenge:
All key systems and combinations [that are] devised by man and [can] therefore also again to be solved by man
If however, the traffic is based on the codes of secret key machines, a backtracking on the plaintext message is
Possible only with so huge usage an outlay of staff and so many available transmission equipment, numerous available radiogram material, that there are limits to the practical implementation [of decipherment]
Bassenge stated it was important that the good results with the remote control key "M" towards all foreign states remained secret, because by the introduction of mechanical keys at the opponent radio reconnaissance would be more difficult with unpredictable consequences.
Intercept stations
In 1920, the naval radio stations used by Radio Intelligence to monitor foreign naval radio traffic consisted of the following: On the North Sea coast, Borkum, Wilhelmshaven, Nordholz, List and at Falshöft, Neumünster, Kiel, Arkona, Swinemuende, Pillau in the Baltic. The geographical location of the intercept stations were considered unfavorable for the most efficient operation, in particular when bearings were taken that proved less than accurate. Initially, newly recruited operators were untrained, but continuous monitoring soon sharpened operational practices. During the early years, processes remained unchanged. The operational and organisation use of the stations changed later, with Wilhelmshaven, Swinemuende and Kiel being reassigned with only one station, at times only 1 Bereich being available for B-Dienst. A Bereich was the name of a monitoring unit consisting of one operator, and 1 or two receivers, i.e. a minute intercept station.
Operational tasks of the intercept stations were assigned based on the metrics: geographical location, their size and equipment and the quality of reception in the short, medium and long wave band. Interest was focused not only on normal tactical targets (traffic sent from enemy ship maneuvers or training), but radio traffic dealing with orders and reports Main Intercept Station Navy Radio South was eventually created, placed under a commanding officer and consisted of 3 Bereich.
In 1925, a plan was executed to create an interception station (Codename:MNO:Sued) as far southwest as possible, to monitor the Mediterranean. A station was created in the village of Villingen-Schwenningen in the Black Forest, as the demilitarized zone (Rhineland) area was not found to be suitable, i.e. camouflage provisions. Conditions were found to be not suitable and in Autumn 1926, the MNO:Sued subsequently moved close to the town of Landsberg am Lech. When conditions changed, i.e. lack of the need for camouflage, MNO:Sued moved to a specifically constructed facility at Langenargen, close to Lake Constance, which was tested to ensure excellent bearing and reception conditions were excellent.
By 1936, the importance of linking the stations with the Main Intercept Station by the teletype was known. Initially the general Navy teletype net was used to link coastal stations and Berlin, but gradually a specialized Radio Intelligence teletype net was created to link all the stations. The time it took for a signal to be gathered, decoded and analysed was reduced to thirty minutes. During the 1920s, the same signal were sent to Berlin by post. The increase in speed led to the redesign of the staff facilities at B-Dienst, so that the operations department plotting room were directly connected to the updating of charts After Austrian Anschluss in 1938, an Intercept Station was established outside the town of Neusiedel am See, for tracking Russian naval radio traffic in the Gulf of Finland and the Black Sea.
Within the network, existed not only a teletype net, but a bearing net, which could be accessed from telephone anywhere in network. Stations were classified as either regional or main intercept stations. Stations were equipped with long wave and in some stations, short wave direction finding sets. In peacetime there was practically no difference in each type of station. In times of war, it was the responsibility of so-called Regional Major Intercept stations, those stations at Neumünster, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Swinemuende, to keep naval commanders informed of all relevant information specific to their area. In 1942, Naval Radio Intelligence and Naval Radio Station was dropped The intercept stations were re-designated as Navy Main Bearing Station.
Prior to the war, the stations were assigned to the following tasks:
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;background:EEEEEE" | Intercept Station Assignment Interwar Period
|-
| style="background:#E6FFF2"|British Navy Radio Traffic:
|
|-
| rowspan="4" |
| Main Intercept Station Neumünster
|-
| Regional Major Intercept Station Wilhelmshaven
|-
| Regional Major Intercept Station Kiel
|-
| Regional Major Intercept Station Swinemuende
|-
| style="background:#E6FFF2"|French Navy Radio Traffic:
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |
| Main Intercept Station Soest
|-
| Main Intercept Station Langenargen
|-
| style="background:#E6FFF2"|Russian Navy Radio Traffic:
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |
| Main Intercept Station Neusiedl am See
|-
| Regional Intercept Station Pillau
|-
| style="background:#E6FFF2"|Polish Navy Radio Traffic:
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |
| Regional Intercept Station Pillau
|-
| Regional Major Intercept Station Swinemuende
|-
| style="background:#E6FFF2"|Italian Navy Radio Traffic:
|
|-
|
| Main Intercept Station Langenargen
|}
Normally, no monitoring tasks were allocated to naval units, except those ships undergoing long cruises. These sometimes received special orders to perhaps monitor the traffic of the US navy or the Japanese Navy, and also the UK and French navies. Monitoring of UK naval traffic close to home supplemented the coastal station traffic, whereas monitoring of distant nations naval traffic, e.g. the USA navy, only provided results of superficial value, but good enough to produce a pamphlet entitled Radio Communications and Traffic in the US ("Funkwsen U.S.A")By 1939, B-Dienst was able to employ 36 watching stations
Direction finding
Large scale radio direction finding (abbr. RDF) was not employed in B-Dienst until the 1930s. The Unit radio reconnaissance operation in 1937–38 had a central control centre in Berlin, three other control centres (North: Neumünster, middle: Soest, South: Langenargen), four main bearing radio sets (Wilhelmshaven, Flensburg, Swinemuende, Pillau) and eight targeting stations along the North and Baltic Coast (Borkum, Cuxhaven, Arkona, Darss, Falshöft, Ustka, Memel, Windau). In March 1939, the B-Service observed a total of 36 radio traffic areas, including 14 British, 10 French and 10 Russian. When decoding, the B-Dienst had 20 radio key process desks, of which 7 were English, 5 were French and 4 Russian. To understand the efficacy of the cryptographic service, in 1938, the B-Dienst managed to decipher about 80% of tactical signals, immediately from a French naval exercise being conducted at the time. Around 4000 people were involved in radio intelligence during the period of world war 2. The stations themselves were in remote coastal locations for maximum security and freedom from interference by other electro-magnetic sources.
For successful direction finding, a minimum intercept angle of 15° between two bearing bases was necessary. By stretching a line between Borkum and List, composing the base of a triangle and simultaneously the chord, a circular direction finding coverage could be made over the North Sea. At its maximum, the coverage could direction-find the Royal Navy's Home Fleet which was located at Scapa Flow. At that range, a measurement accuracy of ±1° attributed to both stations, would have put location to within an accuracy of around 35 km diameter circle.
Operations
Offensive operations
In late 1919, Wilhelm Tranow reconstructed Britain's enormous Government Telegraph Code which was used by the Admiralty to carry reports about warships. Later in the 1920s it used the broken code to enable the Germans to track British gunboat activity on the Yangtze.
During the interwar period, gathering signal intelligence from foreign shipping started from about 1925, when training exercises resumed after the war. Signals interception was split between tactical intercept gathering from shipping and strategic signal intercept from coastal intercept stations. Monitoring of large foreign shipping exercises, usually involving dozens of ships, tended to be unfocused and rudimentary in terms of objectives and process with significant outlay in terms of cost by B-Dienst. Observations could span several weeks or months and involve dozens of staff. Only ship movements were recorded at all times. French naval shipping was considered the primary target and by mid 1926, their disposition, operation and tactical aspects were studied.
During 1932, a much clearer and focused effort was undertaken by B-Dienst to watch the totality of the British and other forces naval exercises, instead of the intermittent observations that happened during the 1920s. Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and French shipping was also continually observed. Radio frequencies could not be monitored indefinitely due to lack of resources, as shipping maneuvers could not be known in advance.
In 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed between Britain and Germany, which enabled Germany to break the Treaty of Versailles restrictions and increase the physical size of their Naval forces. The signing of the Treaty signaled a relaxation in the use of Naval attachés attached to German embassies. Such an Naval attaché stole French naval charts in Paris, enabling B-Dienst to follow French shipping maneuvers to a much greater accuracy and extent. When new charts were introduced by French Navy, B-Dienst were able to quickly reconstruct them, due to having the original charts, and the Wilhelm Tranow cryptanalysis unit, who considered French Naval codes easy to break. By this time, B-Dienst had sufficient resources to enable British and French naval deployments to be analysed in immense details. An initial synopsis would be produced after an exercise, followed by a detailed reports, running to hundreds of pages including charts and analysis of shipping maneuvers.
In mid-1935, Adolf Hitler, who still considered Britain a potential ally, ordered the whole naval staff to redirect their operational readiness planning against France and ordered the main code breaking effort at B-Dienst to transfer to France. For the newly formed Kriegsmarine, who considered their major potential opponent being Britain, viewed the order with suspicion. Tranow, who laughed when he heard the order, stated:
I don't want to delve into high policy, but I want to say one thing: You know the English report their worldwide ship movements through these codes. Suppose their Mediterranean Fleet pours through the Straits of Gibraltar, and moves in to the Atlantic, or the Channel or even into the North Sea. Don't you want to know this in advance?
The Kriegsmarine reconsidered their position and allowed Tranow to continue, in violation of Hitler's order. From 1938 onwards, the British Admiralty was now considered the primary target, as B-Dienst grown enough to have sufficient resources and personnel to undertake the task. During the 1934 to 1936 period, detailed observation of land based British carrier and fleet engagement exercises and destroyer escort duty were studied in minute detail and analysed. ASDIC signals were also observed for the first time, although not understood.
Global movements of oil worldwide were also observed for the first time. In September 1935, Tranow and his unit made a major advance in breaking the Royal Navy's most widely used code, the 5-digit Naval Code (German Code Name: München (Munich)), using the method of comparing the routes of a merchant vessel, which were published in Lloyds Weekly Shipping Reports (Lloyd's Register), with the coded reports. By 1939, French cyphers were comprehensively broken with four naval codes being comprehensively read by Tranow on a regular basis.
Defensive operations
Introduction of the Enigma
The biggest operational fact that could be taken from the Naval Intelligence Service during the interwar period was discovering after the end of the First World War that German Naval Communications cyphers and associated encrypted messages had been so comprehensively deciphered and for such a long period of time by British Intelligence. The service realized a profound change in the way it undertook secret communications was required.
The Navy cast around for new way to encrypt communication and realized they had been offered a new method 5 years before in the spring of 1918, when an inventor called Arthur Scherbius had demonstrated a sample multi-rotor machine (Rotor machine) to Naval staff. His chief point regarding the device during the demonstration was the impracticability of solving the message even if the enemy had the device. He stated in his memorandum:
The key variation is so great that, that without knowledge of the key, even with the available plaintext and ciphertext, and with the possession of the machine, the key cannot be found, since it is impossible to run through 6 billion (seven rotors) or 100 trillion (thirteen rotors) keys [rotor starting positions].
The Naval staff examined the machine and found that it "afforded good security, even if compromised". They decided not to pursue it, instead recommending that the Foreign Office could evaluate it, for perhaps diplomatic traffic. But incidentally the Foreign Office was not interested either. The price of a 10-rotor machine, measuring a 12 by 5.5 by 4.75 inches was ℛℳ4000 to ℛℳ5000 (Reichsmarks) or about $14,400 to $18000 in 1991 dollars.
Taking a second look at the Enigma Machine and possibly evaluating a number of other machines, including the entirely unsuitable Kryha, they formally began negotiations with Arthur Scherbius company, Chiffriermaschinen Aktien-Gessellscaft, and started production of Enigma machines for the Navy in 1925.
The machine produced for the navy was not the commercial model, but had a different alphabetic keyboard as opposed to a Qwerty layout. The rotor wiring was different as well. Only three rotors could be used at a time, with five supplied, providing a greater choice of keys, hence security. Instead of twenty-six contacts, the Naval Enigma had twenty-nine; adding to the alphabet was three umlaute characters, ä, ö, ü and hence encrypted messages contained umlauted codewords.
The Navy worries about espionage meant that only officers, who were considered honourable and less prone to corruption, were allowed to set rotor positions. Another security measure implemented to stop the possible solving of Enigma messages, by using a technique called superimposition was ensuring that the rotor starting positions were far apart. This was to stop the enciphering clerk from making up a starting position that was not random, for instance AAA or ABCABC. These were listed in an attached booklet. The last security measure implemented at the time, was classifying messages by grade, i.e. general, officer, staff, with fewer cryptographic resources available to personnel the further down the rank hierarchy, and progressively more power cryptography the higher rank you were.
By the start of 1926, the machine and its associated key processes were put into service as Radio Cipher C (German: Funkschlüssel C), and it came with a 23-page service manual.
Defensive operations: rearmament years
During the German re-armament, the Navy continued to evaluate the Enigma and its key processes. A study by Lieutenant Henno Lucan, second radio officer on the battleship SMS Elsass, reported that the Naval Enigma met neither modern physical or cryptographic security. During this time, the Army (Reichswehr) suggested that the Navy use the Army Enigma. The Army's Enigma had the plug board (Enigma machine#Plugboard) which increased the number of enciphering circuits by 2 to 3 billion, and of course lost 5,213 starting positions.
In February 1930, Naval Command requested that B-Dienst investigate the report and the Army Enigma, and they stated on 21 June that it "offered considerable greater security".
In August 1934, having worked through the huge Naval bureaucracy for four years, the Navy (Reichsmarine) approved the decision. An additional security measure was added however, in that the new Naval Enigma was to have seven rotors. The new machine was called Radio Cipher M (German: Funkschlüssel M) and the instructions stated that rotors I, II and III were to be used when communicating with the Army, rotors IV and V stay in reserve and that rotors VI and VII be used when the Navy had to send messages to itself.
In early 1939, the Navy recalled rotors VI and VII and cut a second notch in the alphabet rings. Notches now stood next to H and U. Each notch now caused the left rotor to move one position when the notch reached a certain point in the rotors revolution. Rotors I to V and later rotor VIII each did this once in a revolution. This shortened the period but also reduced the chance of a superimposition attack.
Security
Physical security of the Enigma machinery and other communications equipment was critically important to Naval Command. In January 1930, it conducted a survey amongst it four major units that stated:
a surveillance of the machine and the rotor box, more comprehensive than before, [particularly on smaller vessels] is planned... A sharp supervision of personnel who have access to the machine is necessary
Naval Command noted to all staffs that it intended to ensure the machine was secured with a lock instead of a just a lead seal
Staff reported back on security arrangements. The commander of the battleship SMS Hessen stated that the machine was "housed in a specially prepared, lockable cabinet of the cipher desk, in the radio shack... The rotor boxes are kept under a secret lock in the office of the radio officer". Other officers wanted to keep the lead seal.
A memorandum on espionage, was sent around by the Defense Ministry (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) on Personnel Security on 15 October 1934. This stated:
During a change of position..., a non-commissioned officer and a private of a communications battalion left, through negligence, the cipher machine and the hand cipher in the field. The loss was noticed by them upon arrival in their new position, but the cryptographic material was not found in the place where it was lost. A civilian had taken it and delivered it to the mayor of a neighbouring village within half an hour.
The same memo included a summary of persons executed for treason and betrayal of military secrets, 148 in 1933, 155 for the first seven months of 1934. Several other people were discovered to be negligent during that period, including Radioman Second Class Egon Bress of the Fourth Torpedo Boat Half-Flotilla who was arrested in February 1934 for taking photographs of Enigma and hundreds of cryptographic documents for his own uses.
The Kriegsmarine considered physical security important, but how the machine was used, was also critically important. Poor practice was corrected on an ongoing basis. On 9 January 1932 Radioman Kunert, located at the Baltic naval base in Kiel, made a fundamental mistake when he transmitted both the enciphered and plain message to anybody who was listening. This was considered a violation of the grossest sort. After that incident, an additional training program was implemented that illustrated the kinds of errors and their consequences that could be produced to break key security protocols.
Another area of concern, was of course, theft, betrayal and accidental comprise. It did not worry about the capture of a single Enigma, but it did worry that a seizure at the same time as a list of current machine settings and the booklet of indicators would enable detailed investigation at least until the duration of the list and booklet settings existed. The Navy started to print document in water-soluble ink. The ink was red, the paper pink, being a form of blotting paper. Worried about water exposure of ships, two copies of cryptographic documents were kept, in enclosed envelope.
The last security measure put in before the start of World War II, was a system that should be put in place, should all the Enigma system; the machine, the list of current settings, Rotors, the booklet that stated the rotor starting positions and indicators, and the Bigram tables, be lost or stolen. The method, which was often memorized by the cipher clerk, was to change the rotor order and the ring positions. The clerk would add 3 to the key lists Rotor number, so when Rotor II was to go into the left hand position, Rotor V would go in instead, and thus the clerk would set alphabet rings on the successive rotors respectively 4,5,6 places. Thus the key lists ring positions KYD would be set to ODJ. A special cue word would initiate these changes, the first of these were called Aldebaran. So the clerks notebook would contain Aldebaran, R 3, L 456 in which R stood for rotor and L for letter.
With these security practices in place, the Kriegsmarine assumed it had a secure communication system. A central Monitoring Centre was established at the start of the war, it submitted a report to Naval Command, that it should consider keeping communications to the minimum and stated "because our cipher systems are not to be viewed as 100 percent secure".
Naval War Command rejected the report, particularly in the light of the fact that Admiral Karl Dönitz was planning to introduce a technique that which he learned in the First World War, in which once a submarine encountered a convoy, it would break radio silence to report the position of that convoy, thereby enabling the British admiralty to direction-find the U-boat and monitor its encrypted communications
Liaison
Liaison with other German Signals Intelligence organisations, although described as close, was somewhat different. In the 1920s there was little organisational liaison between the different signals intelligence agencies. What was exchanged tended to be on minimal terms. Relations did exist between certain individuals notably Wilhelm Tranow of B-Dienst and Dr. Erich Hüttenhain of the Reichswehrministerium/Chiffrierstelle cipher agency, (early OKW/Chi) by exchanges between individual team members which tended to be on a like-for-like basis.
In the 1920s there was some cooperation with Pers Z S, the Cryptanalysis Department or Signal Intelligence Agency of the German Foreign Office (German:Auswärtiges Amt) but the relationship was tinged with animosity, as Pers Z S isolated itself from the German intelligence community. Although attempts were made to revive the relationship in 1940, nothing came of the relationship.
Both the OKW/Chi and B-Dienst believed that the Finnish cipher bureau, which was formed in 1924, did good work with Wilhelm Fenner of the OKW/Chi visiting the Finnish cipher bureau unit on a fact finding visit in 1927. B-Dienst had substantial links with the Finns, and started training them in 1935. The Finns has purchased a Soviet Union Code from the Japanese which was used in the Baltic to read Russian Naval traffic in 1937. B-Dienst also became involved with the Latvians and later Estonians who passed raw Russian intercepts to B-Dienst, in near real time using a special code, disguised to read as domestic traffic.
In 1932, the Italian Regina Marina (Regia Marina), signal intelligence unit, Servizio Informazioni Segrete made contact with B-Dienst to ask for help with intelligence sharing, with B-Dienst explicitly wanting French naval intercepts from the Mediterranean and a relationship was established in Spring 1933. In April 1933, Tranow and others traveled to Rome to exchange material through the German naval Attaché. But the relationship soured due to Italy's role in the Stresa Front agreement. In 1936, the Italian Regia Marina made a further attempt, when both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini required cooperation between the military intelligence agencies of both nations, but B-Dienst was not part of this agreement until 1936 and B-Dienst considered the Italian unit to be complete amateurs.
In 1935, Dr. Erich Hüttenhain visited Madrid, prior to the start of the Spanish Civil War. B-Dienst and the Abwehr conducted further visits with Senior Specialist Mueller of OKW/Chi Subsection V5, French and English translator Rudolf Trappe of the OKW/Chi and other personnel with a view to establishing intercept stations on the Iberian Peninsula near Ferrol and on the Canary Islands, to observe British and French naval exercises in the Mediterranean. The operation by B-Dienst was hoping to achieve experience in long-distance communications but operations in Spain did not achieve expectations, principally due to the difficulties of integrating Spanish Intercept Stations into the B-Dienst network. It was hoped a B-Dienst radio supply network (German:Etappendiesnt) could be used to integrate the non homogeneous networks, but the service was only used briefly. After the Spanish Civil War started, B-Dienst made substantial effort to read Republican Naval communications.
No cooperation with the Luftstreitkräfte was known to exist, but became possible with the Luftwaffe signals intelligence unit (Luftnachrichten Abteilung 350) after 1939. Cooperation with the Wehrmacht signals intelligence units, as opposed to Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (Abbr. OKW/Chi) cipher bureau, brought no perceptible results due to the different types of intercept the two systems were set up to collect. Relationships with the Forschungsamt (Abbr. FA), whose intercept model was based on domestic wiretapping was based on few common interests and yielded little. Unlike the OKW/Chi, B-Dienst did not lose staff to the FA when Abbwehr Gruppe IV/B-Dienst liaison officer, Hans Schimpf, took over the Forschungsamt at Hermann Göring's invitation, which soured relations.
Statistics
In the 1920s an intercept station would take 300 signals a month. In late 1934, the Pillau station collected nearly 1000 Polish and Russian signals. Between 1929 and 1932 the larger Main Intercept Station South received around 100 signals a day, by 1939 this had increased to 1000. In 1937, the 14 intercept stations intercepted 252,000 intercepts. By 1938, this had increased by 42,000 signals to 290,000. During this time, B-Dienst were working on seven British cyphers, five French cyphers, four Soviet and three Danish cyphers. By 1939, around 308,000 signals were being intercepted per day.
World War Two (1939 to 1945)
Organisation
Late in 1939, the Naval War Command came into being (German: Seekriegsleitung, English:Naval Operations) which split the various naval war staffs into departments, although the intelligence function had of course existed since the 1920s, in various forms.
The Naval Intelligence Division was split in January 1940. The two units of Foreign Navies and Radio Reconnaissance now formed the Department of Navy Message Evaluation, later called (3/SKL). Their task consisted in the collection and analysis of information about foreign naval forces and fleet bases, positioning and composition of battle group (task forces), ship detection and location, ship building reports, technical data, estimates etc. The heads of this Department during the war years, were:
Captain Paul Wever (1 January 1940 to 21 June 1940)
Captain Gottfried Krüger (22 June 1940 to July 1942)
Captain Norbert von Baumbach (July 1942 to 28 June 1944)
Rear Admiral Otto Schulz (28 June 1944 to 17 July 1945)
In June 1940, the Radio Reconnaissance broke away from 3/SKL, which was one of the chief forwarders of information into the Foreign Navies department. The Radio Reconnaissance successfully kept its independence as a separate and equal branch of the SKL during the war, and eventually swelled both in importance and size, to over 5000 people. The Foreign Navies department shrank in size in the early 1940s, and lost significant numbers of staff in later years. Possibly because of the lack of Fleet action, and inaccuracies in the statistical methods for measurement, the Department of Foreign Navies had a wholly negative impact on the German war effort
The newly established Department of Naval Intelligence (2/SKL, later 4/SKL) was in January 1940 still within the Central Department (Operations) and the Mail Submission service. In June 1940, the Department of Naval Intelligence was detached from Central department. The Navy Message Inspection Service was dissolved in June 1941. The Navy intelligence took over its tasks, thus becoming the official group (4/SKL) and was divided into three departments:
Central Division (MND I)
Mail Submission Service (MND II)
Radio Reconnaissance (MND III)
Radar (MND IV)
A further Department was the Radio Measurement service in October 1943. In June 1944 this became the Department of Navy Location (Radar Research) service, later called Radar Research. The radar service was started in August 1943, in an attempt to stem the location of U-boats and included research on Allied non-radar location devices as well as radar. Instead the Department wire news service (MND IV) was annexed. From 1941 group heads of the Office of the MND were:
Konteradmiral Rear Admiral Ludwig Stummel – 1 January 1940 – 15 June 1941
Vice Admiral Eberhard Maertens – 16 June 1941 to May 1943
Rear Admiral Ludwig Stummel – May 1943 – 16 August 1944
Rear Admiral Fritz Krauss – 16 August 1944 – 22 July 1945
Head of the Department of Radio Reconnaissance, as B-Dienst was called throughout the war, was Captain Heinz Bonatz. Frigate Captain Hans Meckel was head of the tracking (English:Radar Research) (5/SKL) service. This is mentioned here because the location service was always a part of the naval intelligence service, but became a full Seekreigsleitug unit, when the department grew in size and importance as the war progressed.
By the end of 1944, the German naval intercept service and related intelligence activities formed part of the division of Naval Communications, which in turn formed one of the six numbered Naval Operation Departments.
1/SKL Operations Commanded by Rear Admiral Hans Karl Meyer
2/SKL U-Boat Operations Commanded by Rear Admiral Eberhard Godt
3/SKL Intelligence Commanded by Otto Schulz
4/SKL Communications Commanded by Rear Admiral Fritz Krauß
5/SKL Radar Research Commanded by Commander Meckel
6/SKL Hydrography & Meteorology Commanded by Vice Admiral Otto Fein
TICOM reports
The TICOM reports received from Special Intelligence Branch OP-322Y1 by Captain J. S Harper, Captain U.S. Navy, Chief, Office of Operations, Training Division on 23 April 1952.
IR 95443 Subject: Historical Naval Radio Intelligence (B-Dienst) Date: 21 August 1951
IR 94882 Subject: German Navy Radio Monitoring Service (B-Dienst) Date: 19 October 1951
IR 94819 Subject: German Navy Radio Monitoring/Decipher Service (B-Dienst) Date: 20 October 1951
IR 94821 Subject: German Navy Radio Monitoring Intelligence Service Date: 24 October 1951
Serial B-99915 ComNavForGer Subject: Reports by Captain K. H. Bonatz on former German Radio Intelligence Personnel Date: 26 February 1952
Serial 00510 U. S. Navat London. Subject: Germany, Navy, Communication, Personnel formerly Engaged in Intercept and Monitoring Activity. Date: 27 March 1952
I-147: Detailed Interrogation of' Members of OKM 4/SKL III at Flensburg.
Citations
General bibliography
Friedrich L Bauer: Die Komödie der Irrungen im Wettstreit der Kryptologen. Vortrag vom 14. Dezember 2007. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften: München 2008 (Abhandlungen, Neue Folge, Heft 176)
Heinz Bonatz: Die deutsche Marine-Funkaufklärung 1914–1945. Wehr und Wissen: Darmstadt 1970. (Reihe Beiträge zur Wehrforschung Band 20/21. ISSN 0067-5253)
Heinz Bonatz: Seekrieg im Äther. Die Leistungen der Marine-Funkaufklärung 1939–1945. E.S. Mittler: Herford 1981.
Ralph Erskine: "Enigma's Security: What the Germans Really Knew". In: Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine (eds.): Action this day. Bantam Press: London 2001, pp. 370–385.
Helmuth Giessler: Der Marine-Nachrichten- und Ortungsdienst. Technische Entwicklung und Kriegserfahrungen. J. F. Lehmann: München 1971, (Reihe Wehrwissenschaftliche Berichte Band 10. ISSN 0083-7822)
Hans H. Hildebrand, Walther Lohmann: Die deutsche Kriegsmarine. 1939–1945. Gliederung, Einsatz, Stellenbesetzung. Podzun: Bad Nauheim 1956, Kapitel 32.
Hans H. Hildebrand: Die organisatorische Entwicklung der Marine nebst Stellenbesetzung 1848 bis 1945. 3 Teile. Biblio-Verlag: Osnabrück 2000 (Reihe Formationsgeschichte und Stellenbesetzung der deutschen Streitkräfte 1815–1990 Band 2).
Werner Rahn: Warnsignale und Selbstgewissheit. Der deutsche Marine-Nachrichtendienst und die vermeintliche Sicherheit des Schlüssels M („Enigma") 1943/44. In: Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 61 (2002), pp. 141–154
Werner Rahn: Der Einfluss der Funkaufklärung auf die deutsche Seekriegführung im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg. In: Winfried Heinemann (Hrsg.): Führung und Führungsmittel. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Potsdam 2011 pp. 15–56
Rebecca Ratcliffe: "Searching for Security: The German Investigations into Enigma's Security". In: Intelligence and National Security 14 (1999) Heft 1 (Special Issue) pp. 146–167.
Rebecca Ratcliffe: "How Statistics led the Germans to believe Enigma Secure and why they were wrong: neglecting the practical mathematics of cipher machines". In: Brian J. Winkel (Hrsg.) The German Enigma Cipher Machine. Artech House: Boston, London, 2005.
Jürgen W. Schmidt (Hrsg.): Geheimdienste, Militär und Politik in Deutschland''. Ludwigsfelder Verlags-Haus: Ludwigsfelde 2008. (Reihe Geheimdienstgeschichte Band 2).
KKpt. Achim Teubner, März 1939, "zitiert bei Werner Rahn: Die Funkaufklärung in der Reichs- und Kriegsmarine 1919–1939". In: Heinemann, 2011
Naval intelligence
Weimar Republic intelligence agencies
Naval history of Germany
Research and development in Nazi Germany
Nazi German intelligence agencies |
48425786 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11B-X-1371 | 11B-X-1371 | 11B-X-1371 is an early-2015 viral video sent to GadgetZZ.com, the Swedish tech blog that publicized it. The black-and-white segment is two minutes in length; its title came from the plaintext of a base64 string written on the DVD. It depicts a person wearing what appears to be a plague doctor costume walking and standing around in a dilapidated abandoned building, with a forest visible through former window openings in the wall behind it. Accompanied by a soundtrack of loud, discordant buzzing noise, the masked figure holds up a hand with an irregularly blinking light. The film did not have any credits or claims to authorship.
Messages, many in commonly used ciphers and encryption systems, have been found hidden in the video and its sound spectrogram, as well as images of tortured and mutilated people. Most of the messages have been decoded by participants in an ongoing Reddit thread, and the images sourced to notable murder investigations such as the Boston Strangler. They have been interpreted as implying a threat of bioterrorism against the United States, although it has also been speculated that the video is in reality a prank, a viral marketing stunt for an upcoming film or video game, or a student film.
After it first came to light in October 2015, it was found that it had been posted to YouTube several months earlier, along with a similarly threatening message in binary code. The poster of that video, known as AETBX, has suggested to inquiring journalists that GadgetZZ is not telling the truth about how it came to possess the video. Internet investigators managed to establish that it was filmed in the former Zofiówka Sanatorium outside Otwock, Poland, sometime between November 2013 and the video's release.
Three months after the initial controversy, an individual going by the name of Parker Warner Wright claimed to have created the video. He told The Daily Dot that it was intended as an art project, and released a sequel video, "11B-3-1369". As a way of proving his identity, he challenged viewers to create an exact duplicate of his plague doctor mask.
Synopsis
The video begins with shaky footage showing a figure mostly concealed in the shadow between two window-sized openings in a brick wall, through which leaves in trees can be seen blowing in the wind. These images are accompanied by indistinct electronic buzzing and hissing sounds. The figure holds their right hand to the window, signaling with three fingers, then one, and finally two.
The figure remains in shadow, with an insert showing it with cloaked arms spread, as the camera moves farther away and slowly circles to the right. After a jump cut, the lighting around the figure improves, revealing that the figure is wearing an outfit that resembles a plague doctor costume, a long dark long-sleeved hooded cloak with its face masked by a long, downward-pointing dark leather beak and goggles. The figure holds up their right hand, palm facing outward at shoulder height, to reveal a blinking light in the center of the palm. Beeping noises appear on the soundtrack in coordination with the blinks.
The figure eventually turns to its right to look at the hand. By this time, the leaves outside are still. The figure turns to look at the camera, now steady, again briefly, then back to its hand. After a series of jump cuts in which they turn rapidly back and forth between the two positions, the figure looks directly at the camera and points to it.
A quick cut later, the costumed character is looking at the camera again with hands at its sides. After a few more jump cuts in which they turn to the right and back again, the figure stands still, then looks to its left slowly. The figure looks down to where a box with various triangular sections appears, then to their right as the image seems to fragment briefly. For the remainder of the video, the cloaked figure stands still with its back to the wall, with the camera apparently handheld again and occasional video effects briefly doubling the image.
History
On October 12, 2015, John-Erik "Johny" Krahbichler, founding editor of the Swedish tech blog GadgetZZ, posted about a "creepy puzzle" that had been sent to him via the mail, perhaps in June. An envelope, postmarked in Warsaw and addressed to "Johny K.", care of the site's post office box in Helsingborg, with no return address, contained "a really weird CD" (actually a DVD). On it was written an alphanumeric string long enough to require two lines. At first he assumed it was a product key.
He assumed it was some software someone had sent him to review. He tested it out in a spare laptop, and instead found the video. "I was unsure what to think of it, but I found it very odd", he told The Washington Post. He said that he "later reexamined it and started noticing the 'codes' and letters hidden all around the video".
After making a minimal effort to decode it himself, he gave up and posted about it to his blog, complete with images of the disc and envelope. A few days later Gizmodo ran a story on the discovery. Lily Hay Newman of Slate described the experience of watching it for the first time as "creepy" and "unsettling", likening it to the experience of watching the cursed videotape from the 2002 film The Ring.
Possible origins
Early investigations soon found that Krahblicher was not the first to make the video public. In May, a user account identified as "AETBX" had posted it to YouTube, the account's only post to the site. There, it had been identified and described in binary code, with a string of 0s and 1s. As other users began commenting on it, AETBX returned to ask why there was suddenly so much interest in his five-month-old posting. Some commenters speculated that he had, in fact, created it himself; he vigorously denied it.
The Washington Post contacted him by email. He identified himself only as "Daniel from Spain" and said he had been sent the video in the mail as well. His version, he said, was also sent to him, via email from a girl he did not know, who told him she found it on a park bench. In an update to his original post, Krahblicher reported that someone found that even earlier than the YouTube posting, it had been posted to the paranormal board on 4chan. Later, in The Daily Dot, he cast doubt on Krahblicher's account, saying "Anyone can fake a DVD".
Two other leads on possible creators proved false. Around the time Krahblicher first posted about the video, the blog of Triton TV, a student film group at the University of California, San Diego, posted a screenshot of the video along with a title and description in binary. Reached for comment, the group said it no longer used that website and it had been hacked a few weeks earlier; The Daily Dot said the image appeared to have been one of many posted by the hacker at random. A man named Parker J. Wright replied to a reporter's query on Twitter by saying he was not the Parker Wright who had posted the video to YouTube on September 30 with the note "Are you listening?"
While the identity of the video creator remained unknown, the location at which it was filmed has been identified. A Polish Internet user who was following the story went to the former Zofiówka Sanatorium, near Otwock, a short distance south of Warsaw. One of the rooms there had the same fenestration and graffiti seen in the video. The latter were not present in a photo of the room taken in November 2013, suggesting the video was made between then and April 2015.
Parker Warner Wright
In late November, after most of the initial talk and speculation about the video, its creator and purpose had died down, a Twitter account was opened under the name Parker Warner Wright. Its owner claimed to have made the video; Wright was not the only person on the Internet actively claiming the same thing at the time and throughout the last months of 2015 others posted their own videos in attempt to authenticate themselves.
At the end of the month, Wright announced that the next video would be released "in exactly 1.444 metric hours" on his YouTube channel. At the appointed time, a new video, titled 11B-3-1369, in black and white with occasional effects and inserts, was published, with "Their lies unlock our dissent", underneath in the description. In it, the figure in the plague doctor costume returned, shown outside the sanatorium in the forest at first, and later within. The soundtrack was quieter than that of the first video and included some electronic tinkling noises which were synchronized with the blinker on the figure's hand. Later in the video, the plague-doctor figure is joined by a woman in a white dress with her face covered in bandages.
Three weeks later, The Daily Dot published an interview with Wright. He told reporter Mike Wehner that he was a U.S. citizen who lives in Poland, and that the videos were meant as an art project. After finishing the video, in May 2015, he had left three copies, two on discs in a subway and park in Poland, and the last one posted to 4chan. Reporter Mike Wehner concluded thus that the YouTube user AETBX had no involvement in the video's creation. As a way of authenticating himself, Wright challenged visitors to his Facebook page to replicate the plague doctor mask, which he claimed to have designed and built himself.
Some commenters on Wright's Facebook page were skeptical of his claims, pointing to differences in the costume between the two videos; Wright explained the differences by saying he wanted, and made, a better cloak for the second video. Krahbichler accepted Wright's claims. "It would be too much of a hassle just to play along for this long, and making up stories that fit so well," he wrote shortly after the second video was posted. "I believe it is very safe to say that PWW is indeed the creator". In an early-December exchange on Facebook, Wright had told him he had chosen him as the recipient since he had "won the business card lottery ... you handed me your business card, at some point". Krahbichler speculated that Wright had probably attended at least one of the many tech shows where he had had a booth.
Interpretations
The Reddit users who responded to Krahbichler's post found other coded messages hidden in the video. An encoded inscription on the disc's menu was found to be "11B-X-1371", which has been treated as the video's title. James Billington of the International Business Times wrote that "some reported [that the video's audio] sound[ed] like 'I would love to kill you' being repeated over and over". Another user created a spectrogram of the sound and found both text and images concealed within. The former had one in plaintext saying "You Are Already Dead"; the rest were enciphered. The images depicted women being mutilated and tortured; early fears that the creator of the video might be a serial killer were allayed when later research discovered that one of the stills was from the horror film The Bunny Game, one was from the German film Slasher
and another was a picture of a victim of the Boston Strangler.
Most messages had a generally threatening tone. A sound spectrogram of the DVD's menu yielded a picture of a skull and more coded messages. The binary title of AETBX's YouTube posting was "Muerte", Spanish for "death", and the description similarly resolved to Spanish text—"Te queda 1 año menos", rendered in English as "you have one less year". The triangle-and-square message near the end of the video was found to read "Ad oppugnare homines" in Pigpen cipher—Latin for "To attack or target men".
The plague doctor costume led other readers to see the video's threats as related to bioterror. One message's plaintext read "The eagle=infected will spread his disease. We are the antivirus will protect the world body"; another read "Strike an arrow through the heart of the eagle". The year 1371, it was also suggested, was one in which the Black Death was ravaging Europe.
Single-frame inserts were found to have Morse code and other texts in common ciphers. The Morse's plaintext was the phrase "RED LIPS LIKE TENTH". A sequence of 20 pairs of two-digit characters was found to be the latitude and longitude of the White House in Washington; it was later noted that the "RED LIPS" phrase could be an intended anagram for "KILL THE PRESIDENT". These were seen as a threat against the United States in general and President Barack Obama in particular. Krahbichler reported that a cipher in the video could be decoded to reveal the message "STANDANDFIGHTWITHUSTAKEDOWNTHEBLACKBEASTKILLHISDISEASEORFALLWITHTHEREST", and that the "BLACKBEAST" of the message could be Obama, an African-American.
Krahbichler said that he believed that the video contained a political message, but was not a terrorist threat.
Shortly after the individual calling himself Parker Warner Wright revealed himself as the creator on Twitter at the end of November, he said to those who had been working to decode the texts "you are no closer to understanding the message". However, he allowed that it had been his intent that people work together to break the codes: "Not one individual could decipher the whole".
Possible purposes
While the video's metamessage was clearly threatening, it remained too vague to draw any definitive conclusions about what the makers' intent might have been. Since it was publicized a few weeks before Halloween, there was speculation that it could be an Internet prank related to the holiday. After initially being disturbed when the threatening messages were decoded, Krahbichler said, "I'm starting to think again it's just an elaborate joke". However, he did not think it was one aimed at him specifically, since if the sender "knew me personally, they would know I don't have the expertise to crack it, at least not the whole thing".
The other theory to gain support was that it was viral marketing to promote an upcoming movie or video game. A Redditor noted that the film version of Dan Brown's novel Inferno was beginning production at that time for a late 2016 release. In the story, a rich villain makes a video warning of his plans to release a virus in order to reduce population growth. In it, he also wears a plague doctor costume, likens himself to death and claims at the same time to be the cure.
Moviepilot also reported on speculation that the video was intended to promote the upcoming season of the Syfy series 12 Monkeys, based on the Terry Gilliam film of the same name. Both concern a time traveler from the future who is attempting to prevent the outbreak of a devastating epidemic in the present. Another Redditor had observed that the line "You are already dead" is used frequently in the show, as is a plague doctor costume. He added that the "3-1-2" signaled by the figure's fingers at the beginning of the video could refer to the show's upcoming third season.
The video's Polish origin further suggested a marketing gimmick, according to one Redditor from that country. "[O]ur fledgling [video game] studios don't have large budgets for 'standard' advertisement[s]", he wrote. There had been a similarly creepy viral video in Poland a few years ago, he recalled, that parodied a children's show. He did not think the same people were behind 11B-X-1371, however, as their clip's production values had been higher.
Ultimately, it seemed unlikely that any media company, particularly the major studios and television network making Inferno and 12 Monkeys, would risk the negative publicity that would come from using the images in the spectrograms and a suggested threat against a U.S. president.
Another theory connected the video to popular electronic musician Skrillex. In May, when the video had first been posted to the Internet, he released a song called "Red Lips". Shortly after Krahbichler's original post, he tweeted "#REDLIPS #REDLIPS #REDLIPS". It was speculated that it could be viral marketing for his work—other musicians in that genre have been known to hide images in spectrograms—or from some CDs of unreleased work that he said had been stolen from his hotel room. But if it was the former possibility, Krahblicher noted, "the problem is that the hints towards the works being promoted are fairly weak".
Parker Warner Wright, whom both Krahblicher and The Daily Dot believed to be the creator of the video, said it and its sequel were the first in a series of art projects. He would not be specific on their themes or message. "I see my work as waves on the ocean", he told the latter. "Some people look for shells in it, some surf, others—dive". He had always intended for them to be a series, regardless of whether they went viral or not. "Currently, there is a call for more, and I aim to please", he admitted. "However, my art would move forward irrespective of external force. I have a call from within, I need to answer".
Wright uploaded another video to his Facebook page entitled 110A30213 on November 5, 2016, three days prior to the 2016 United States presidential election. It features Wright addressing a crowd while dressed like a military officer or dictator. Krahbichler theorized that the video, which he deemed "very political", might have a message related to the election. He also felt that the date that Wright posted the video on his Facebook page could be a reference to Guy Fawkes' words "Remember, remember, the 5th of November".
See also
Cicada 3301, the identity claimed by a group, about whom little else is known, that has posted several cryptological puzzles on the Internet in the mid-2010s looking for intelligent people to recruit.
Sad Satan
List of ciphertexts
List of viral videos
References
External links
11B-3-1369 wiki
2015 in Poland
2015 in Sweden
2015 short films
2015 YouTube videos
Films shot in Poland
Internet mysteries
Otwock County
Polish black-and-white films
Polish films
Polish short films
Viral videos
Works published anonymously |
48451831 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil%20Sehnaoui | Khalil Sehnaoui | Khalil Sehnaoui is a Belgian-Lebanese information security consultant who specialises in the Middle-East and the founder and managing partner of Beirut-based Krypton Security. He is also a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Europe's largest association of hackers. In 2021 Sehnaoui started an acting career by featuring in the TV mini series The Role and the TV series Al Hayba.
Background
He co-founded and is a managing partner at the security firm Krypton Security which helps test companies' security strengths, weaknesses, and potential loopholes.
In an online report published on April 6, 2016, Sehnaoui was listed as one of the top 100 influencers in Information Security.
Sehnaoui is often called upon to comment in media about Information Security matters.
Early life and education
Sehnaoui was born in Beirut, to parents Marwan Sehnaoui and Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui, on 23 May 1975 and grew up living between Paris, France and Beirut, Lebanon. His father is the President of the Lebanese Order of Malta and his mother is a Middle-East painter.
He attended College Stanislas in Paris as well as Collège Louise Wegman in Beirut, following which he earned a BA in Management from Universite Saint Joseph in Beirut as well as a Masters in Economics.
Media and television
Media
Sehnaoui was featured in The Guardian's video series "The Power of Privacy" in 2015.
In May 2017 Sehnaoui went viral on Twitter and the internet after tweeting about getting revenge on loud and rude customers in a coffee shop. The customers were being loud and rude to waiters, and were having a very voluble conversation about their perfect new business name. As a retaliation Sehnaoui registered the domain name and tweeted about it. According to Mashable, "Twitter users praised Sehnaoui for his act of digital savagery".
Television
Sehnaoui was also featured on National Geographic in 2017 in the series Breakthrough, produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Season 2 Episode 2, Cyber-Terror. This episode offered "An exclusive look inside the shadowy world of hackers, where good battles evil with the security of the world at stake. This episode follows “white-hat” hackers Jayson Street, Darren Kitchen and Khalil Sehnaoui, security specialists who combine clever coding with “Mission: Impossible”-style “social engineering.” "
Books
In 2019 Sehnaoui was featured amongst 70 information security professionals in a book called "Tribe of Hackers", a collection of industry, career, and personal insights from cybersecurity luminaries. The book quickly rose to the #1 spot of new releases on Amazon in the Computer Security and encryption category.
Controversies
In 2015 there was a controversy when Sehnaoui identified that Silent Circle's warrant canary had been removed from their site. Sehnaoui was also prominently featured in a video series by The Guardian about privacy risks and is often called upon to comment on recent Information Security news. Before founding an information security firm he attempted to improve patient representation in the Lebanese insurance industry.
Starting January 2016 there were reports that the Islamic State allegedly built a new Android app called Alrawi for exchanging encrypted messages, based on claims from online counter-terrorism firm Ghost Security Group (GSG). The claim was quickly reprinted by Newsweek, Fortune and TechCrunch, among others. Sehnaoui was one of the security specialists that helped debunk the myth of this tool, showing that it was just a "bad media mock-up to try and get some attention".
In July 2018, he was arrested for alleged piracy of several Lebanese companies and government institutions, his detention was illegal as there is a legal vacuum in Lebanese laws about cybercrime. He was released after being questioned and no charges were brought against him.
References
External links
Khalil Sehnaoui on IMDB
Khalil Sehnaoui's Twitter
Khalil Sehnaoui's Personal Website
Krypton Security Official Website
1975 births
Living people
Lebanese Melkite Greek Catholics
People associated with computer security
Belgian people of Lebanese descent
Saint Joseph University alumni
21st-century Belgian male actors |
48458765 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft%20Push%20Notification%20Service | Microsoft Push Notification Service | Microsoft Push Notification Service (commonly referred to as MPNS) is a mobile service developed by Microsoft. It allows for developers to send push data from servers to Windows Phone applications. The MPNS is natively supported on applications that target the Windows Phone 8 Operating System. Microsoft announced the Windows Notification Service for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 in 2011, effectively replacing the MPNS with this service. The MPNS can be used on applications that are installed on Windows Phone 8.1 if the source code is migrated to a Microsoft Silverlight application, modified to target Windows Phone 8.1, and was already registered to use the MPNS before the upgrade.
Technical details
Implementation
The MPNS is natively designed for use with Windows Phone 8 applications that implement the service. It allows for developers to send toast notifications, as well as update the tile image and flip notification text on the application's Windows Metro start screen tile. This is accomplished by developers by sending POST messages to the MPNS server network with the request and relevant content. A user typically must allow for data or notifications to be received before an application will register with the MPNS for notification data. The MPNS can be implemented to send notification data using an encrypted channel if the developer purchases an SSL certificate from a third-party provider and uploads its private key and certificate data to their Microsoft Developer Portal account. Otherwise, the MPNS can be implemented to send notification data using an unencrypted channel. Applications that utilize unencrypted channels have rate and size limitations with all notification requests and content that is updated or displayed to the device. These limits can be lifted by purchasing an SSL certificate and switching to utilize MPNS encryption.
Architecture
The MPNS consists of servers and internal interfaces that maintain and store Channel URI Identifiers and device information, authenticate POST requests received from developer servers, and enqueue and deliver requested data to mobile devices. When an application registers for data and notifications, it receives a unique Channel URI Identifiers from the MPNS network. This identifier is used by the application developer's third-party server to reference the device that the particular data delivery request will be sent to. After the mobile device receives its Channel URI Identifier, it is then sent to the developer's server to be stored. When a server sends a POST message to the MPNS network for data delivery, the Channel URI Identifier is included within the message payload, along with the data to deliver, and any parameter options specified. The MPNS network will authenticate the identifier, and enqueue the data for delivery to the mobile device.
References
External links
Windows technology
.NET
Push technology
Windows APIs |
48460345 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutanota | Tutanota | Tutanota is an end-to-end encrypted email software and freemium hosted secure email service. Its motto is "einfach.sicher.mailen" in German, meaning "easy.secure.mailing".
Its business model excludes earning money through advertisement. Instead, it relies solely on donations and premium subscriptions.
As of March 2017, Tutanota's owners claimed to have over 2 million users of the product.
History
Tutanota is derived from Latin and contains the words "tuta" and "nota" which means "secure message". Tutao GmbH was founded in 2011 in Hannover, Germany.
The goal of the developers for Tutanota is to fight for email privacy. Their vision gained even more importance, when Edward Snowden revealed NSA's mass surveillance programs like XKeyscore in July 2013.
Since 2014, the software has been open-sourced and can be reviewed by outsiders on GitHub.
In August 2018, Tutanota became the first email service provider to release their app on F-Droid, removing all dependence on proprietary code. This was part of a full remake of the app, which removed dependence on GCM for notifications by replacing it with SSE. The new app also enabled search, 2FA and got a new reworked user interface.
In November 2020, the Cologne court ordered monitoring of a single Tutanota account that had been used for an extortion attempt. The monitoring function should only apply to future unencrypted emails this account receives and it will not affect emails previously received.
Encryption
Tutanota offers end-to-end encryption for emails sent from one Tutanota user to another. Tutanota also encrypts all emails and contacts stored in their servers, "except for email addresses of users as well as senders and recipients of emails" and "date of an email sent or received". Emails sent non-encrypted, are encrypted only between the Tutanona user and Tutanota servers, and then sent unencrypted to destination user.
Tutanota uses a standardized, hybrid method consisting of a symmetrical and an asymmetrical algorithm - AES with a length of 128 bit and RSA with 2048 bit. To external recipients who do not use Tutanota a notification is sent with a link to a temporary Tutanota account. After entering a previously exchanged password, the recipient can read the message and reply end-to-end encrypted.
Account deletion
Tutanota deletes free accounts that have not been logged into for 6 months.
Censorship
Tutanota has been blocked in Egypt since October 2019, and blocked in Russia since February 2020 for unknown reasons (although believed to be tied to recent actions against services operating outside of the country, especially those that involve encrypted communications).
Though Tutanota has been blocked in the countries, users still access its service via Tor or VPN.
See also
Comparison of mail servers
Comparison of webmail providers
References
External links
Internet properties established in 2011
Cross-platform software
Software using the GPL license
Free security software
Free software webmail
Secure communication |
48467799 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XcodeGhost | XcodeGhost | XcodeGhost (and variant XcodeGhost S) are modified versions of Apple's Xcode development environment that are considered malware. The software first gained widespread attention in September 2015, when a number of apps originating from China harbored the malicious code. It was thought to be the "first large-scale attack on Apple's App Store", according to the BBC. The problems were first identified by researchers at Alibaba, a leading e-commerce firm in China. Over 4000 apps are infected, according to FireEye, far more than the 25 initially acknowledged by Apple, including apps from authors outside China.
Security firm Palo Alto Networks surmised that because network speeds were slower in China, developers in the country looked for local copies of the Apple Xcode development environment, and encountered altered versions that had been posted on domestic web sites. This opened the door for the malware to be inserted into high profile apps used on iOS devices.
Even two months after the initial reports, security firm FireEye reported that hundreds of enterprises were still using infected apps and that XcodeGhost remained "a persistent security risk". The firm also identified a new variant of the malware and dubbed it XcodeGhost S; among the apps that were infected were the popular messaging app WeChat and a Netease app Music 163.
Discovery
On September 16, 2015, a Chinese iOS developer mentioned on the social network Sina Weibo that a malware in Xcode injects third party code into apps compiled with it.
Alibaba researchers then published detailed information on the malware and called it XcodeGhost.
On September 17, 2015, Palo Alto Networks published several reports on the malware.
Operation
Propagation
Because of the slow download speed from Apple servers, Chinese iOS developers would download Xcode from third party websites, such as Baidu Yun (now called Baidu WangPan), a cloud storage service hosted by Baidu, or get copies from co-workers. Attackers took advantage of this situation by distributing compromised versions on such file hosting websites.
Palo Alto Networks suspects that the malware was available in March 2015.
Attack vector
Origins
The attacker used a compiler backdoor attack. The novelty of this attack is the modification of the Xcode compiler. However, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, CIA security researchers from Sandia National Laboratories claimed that they "had created a modified version of Apple’s proprietary software development tool, Xcode, which could sneak surveillance backdoors into any apps or programs created using the tool."
Modified files
Known versions of XcodeGhost add extra files to the original Xcode application:
Core service framework on iOS, iOS simulator and OS X platforms
IDEBundleInjection framework added on iOS, iOS simulator and OS X platforms
XcodeGhost also modified the linker to link the malicious files into the compiled app. This step is reported on the compiling log but not on the Xcode IDE.
Both iOS and OS X apps are vulnerable to XcodeGhost.
Deployment
XcodeGhost compromised the CoreServices layer, which contains highly used features and frameworks used by the app. When a developer compiles their application with a compromised version of Xcode, the malicious CoreServices are automatically integrated into the app without the developer's knowledge.
Then the malicious files will add extra code in UIWindow class and UIDevice class. The UIWindow class is "an object that manages and coordinates the views an app displays on a device screen".
The UIDevice class provides a singleton instance representing the current device. From this instance the attacker can obtain information about the device such as assigned name, device model, and operating-system name and version.
Behavior on infected devices
Remote control security risks
XcodeGhost can be remotely controlled via commands sent by an attacker from a Command and control server through HTTP. This data is encrypted using the DES algorithm in ECB mode. Not only is this encryption mode known to be weak, the encryption keys can also be found using reverse engineering. An attacker could perform a man in the middle attack and transmit fake HTTP traffic to the device (to open a dialog box or open specific app for example).
Stealing user device information
When the infected app is launched, either by using an iPhone or the simulator inside Xcode, XcodeGhost will automatically collect device information such as:
Current time
Current infected app's name
The app's bundle identifier
Current device's name and type
Current system's language and country
Current device's UUID
Network type
Then the malware will encrypt those data and send it to a command and control server. The server differs from version to version of XcodeGhost; Palo Alto Networks was able to find three server URLs:
http://init.crash-analytics.com
http://init.icloud-diagnostics.com
http://init.icloud-analysis.com
The last domain was also used in the iOS malware KeyRaider.
Read and write from clipboard
XcodeGhost is also able, each time an infected app is launched, to store the data written in the iOS clipboard. The malware is also able to modify this data. This can be particularly dangerous if the user uses a password management app.
Hijack opening specific URLs
XcodeGhost is also able to open specific URLs when the infected app is launched. Since Apple iOS and OS X work with Inter-App Communication URL mechanism (e.g. 'whatsapp://', 'Facebook://', 'iTunes://'), the attacker can open any apps installed on the compromised phone or computer, in the case of an infected macOS application. Such mechanism could be harmful with password management apps or even on phishing websites.
Prompting alert dialog
In its current known version XcodeGhost cannot prompt alert dialogs on the user device. However, it only requires minor changes.
By using a UIAlertView class with the UIAlertViewStyleLoginAndPasswordInput property, the infected app can display a fake alert dialog box that looks like a normal Apple ID user credential check and send the input to the Command and control server.
Infected apps
Among all the Chinese apps, IMs app, banking apps, mobile carrier's app, maps, stock trading apps, SNS apps and games were infected. Popular apps used all over the world were also infected such as WeChat, a popular instant messaging app, CamScanner, an app to scan document using the smartphone camera or WinZip.
Pangu Team claimed that they counted 3,418 infected apps.
Fox-it, a Netherland-based security company reports that they found thousand of malicious traffic outside China.
Removal
Neutralizing command and control servers and compromised versions of Xcode
Since the article of Alibaba and Palo Alto Networks, Amazon took down all the servers that were used by XcodeGhost. Baidu also removed all malicious Xcode installers from its cloud storage service.
Removing malicious apps from the App Store
On September 18, 2015 Apple admitted the existence of the malware and began asking all developers with compromised apps to compile their apps with a clean version of Xcode before submitting them for review again.
Pangu Team released a tool to detect infected apps on a device, but like other antivirus apps it won't run on a device that hasn't been jailbroken. Apple does not allow antivirus apps into the iOS App Store.
Checking Xcode version
Apple advises Xcode developers to verify their version of Xcode and to always have Gatekeeper activated on their machine.
References
Compilers
IOS malware
Malware toolkits
Mobile malware
Software development
Trojan horses |
48470600 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON%20Web%20Signature | JSON Web Signature | A JSON Web Signature (abbreviated JWS) is an IETF-proposed standard () for signing arbitrary data. This is used as the basis for a variety of web-based technologies including JSON Web Token.
Purpose
JWS is a way to ensure integrity of information in a highly serializable, machine-readable format. That means that it is information, along with proof that the information hasn't changed since being signed. It can be used for sending information from one web site to another, and is especially aimed at communications on the web. It even contains a compact form optimized for applications like URI query parameters.
Examples
Web commerce
JWS can be used for applications in which digitally signed information must be sent in a machine-readable format, such as e-commerce. For example, say a user named Bob is browsing widget prices on a web site (widgets.com), and wishes to get a quote on one of them. Then widgets.com could provide Bob with a JWS object containing all relevant information about the widget, including the price, then sign it using their private key. Then Bob would have a non-repudiable price quote for the product.
Access to third-party resources
Maybe Widgets.com and WidgetStorage.com have a deal in which WidgetStorage.com will accept coupons from Widgets.com in exchange for traffic. Widgets.com could issue JWS giving Bob a 10% discount on the WidgetStorage.com site. Again, because the data is signed, WidgetStorage can know that Widgets.com emitted this. If the data was not signed, then Bob could change his discount to 50% and no one could know just from looking at the data.
Limitations
JWS is one of the standards in the JOSE series and is meant to be used in combination with them. For example, for encryption JSON Web Encryption (JWE) is supposed to be used in conjunction.
As of 2015, JWS was a proposed standard, and was part of several other IETF draft standards, and there was code available on the web to implement the draft standard.
References
Computer access control
Internet Standards
JSON |
48508911 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory%20Powers%20Act%202016 | Investigatory Powers Act 2016 | The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (c. 25) (nicknamed the Snoopers' Charter) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and Queen Elizabeth II signified her royal assent to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 on 29 November 2016 Its different parts came into force on various dates from 30 December 2016. The Act comprehensively sets out and in limited respects expands the electronic surveillance powers of the British intelligence agencies and police. It also claims to improve the safeguards on the exercise of those powers.
Drafting and scrutiny
In 2014 the British government asked David Anderson, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, to review the operation and regulation of investigatory powers available to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, in particular the interception of communications and communications data, and to recommend change. This report was published in June 2015 and recommended a new law to clarify these powers.
The Draft Investigatory Powers Bill was published in November 2015, with a large number of accompanying documents, and a Joint Committee of the House of Commons and House of Lords was established to scrutinise the draft bill. Some parts of the bill referring to bulk personal datasets came into effect in November 2015, before parliamentary scrutiny began. The Joint Committee published its pre-legislative scrutiny report in March 2016. The Government accepted the vast majority of its 198 recommendations, together with the recommendations of two other parliamentary committees that had scrutinised the draft Bill, and the revised bill was introduced in the House of Commons, where it was subject to debate by Members of Parliament.
In March 2016 the House of Commons passed the Investigatory Powers Bill on its second reading by 281 votes to 15, moving the bill to the committee stage. The Labour Party and Scottish National Party abstained from the vote, while the Liberal Democrats voted against it.
At the committee stage constitutional, technology, and human rights issues were examined. The Labour Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Harriet Harman, said:
At this stage, at the insistence of the Labour Party, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation was commissioned to conduct a further review of the operational case for the bulk powers reserved under the Bill to the British intelligence agencies: bulk interception, bulk collection of metadata, bulk equipment interference and the retention and use of bulk datasets. That review was conducted with the help of a small, security-cleared expert team, and together with 60 case studies, was published in August 2016. Like the 2014-15 reports of the PCLOB and National Academy of Sciences in the US, it is a significant information source for the utility of so-called mass surveillance techniques
On 16 November 2016 the House of Lords approved the final version of the Investigatory Powers Bill, leaving only the formality of Royal Assent to be completed before the Bill became law.
On 21 December 2016, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared that the generalised retention of certain types of personal data is unlawful, although little is known as to how this will affect the Investigatory Powers Act at this stage. As of 29 January 2017, many sources have since reported on the Investigatory Powers Act as if it is currently in action. Draft codes of practice laid out by the Home Office in February 2017 did not provide insight on the Government's communications data code of practise, as it was for the Court of Appeal to decide how to apply the December ruling of the ECJ on data retention in member states. It was then reported in late February 2017 that the aspects of the Bill forcing communications service providers to retain data had been "mothballed" due to the ECJ ruling on the "general and indiscriminate" retention of communications data being illegal.
Provisions of the Act
The Act:
introduced new powers, and restated existing ones, for British intelligence agencies and law enforcement to carry out targeted interception of communications, bulk collection of communications data, and bulk interception of communications;
created an Investigatory Powers Commission (IPC) to oversee the use of all investigatory powers, alongside the oversight provided by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The IPC consists of a number of serving or former senior judges. It combined and replaced the powers of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Intelligence Services Commissioner, and Chief Surveillance Commissioner;
established a requirement for a judge serving on the IPC to review warrants for accessing the content of communications and equipment interference authorised by a Secretary of State before they come into force;
required communication service providers (CSPs) to retain British internet users' "Internet connection records" – which websites were visited but not the particular pages and not the full browsing history – for one year;
allowed police, intelligence officers and other government department managers (listed below) to see the Internet connection records, as part of a targeted and filtered investigation, without a warrant;
permitted the police and intelligence agencies to carry out targeted equipment interference, that is, hacking into computers or devices to access their data, and bulk equipment interference for national security matters related to foreign investigations;
placed a legal obligation on CSPs to assist with targeted interception of data, and communications and equipment interference in relation to an investigation; foreign companies are not required to engage in bulk collection of data or communications;
maintained an existing requirement on CSPs in the UK to have the ability to remove encryption applied by the CSP; foreign companies are not required to remove encryption;
put the Wilson Doctrine on a statutory footing for the first time as well as safeguards for other sensitive professions such as journalists, lawyers and doctors;
provided local government with some investigatory powers, for example to investigate someone fraudulently claiming benefits, but not access to Internet connection records;
created a new criminal offence for unlawfully accessing internet data;
created a new criminal offence for a CSP or someone who works for a CSP to reveal that data has been requested.
Investigatory Powers Commissioner
The Act created the role of Investigatory Powers Commissioner to provide independent oversight of the use of investigatory powers by intelligence agencies, police forces and other public authorities. In March 2017 Lord Justice Sir Adrian Fulford, a Court of Appeal judge, was appointed as first Commissioner for a three-year term. His office (IPCO) will have fifteen senior judges as judicial commissioners, a technical advisory panel of scientific experts, and around 50 staff. The Act gives the prime minister the power to appoint the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and other Judicial Commissioners.
In January 2019 the Home Office blocked the appointment of Eric King as head of investigations at IPCO, citing national security grounds. King had previously been director of the Don't Spy On Us coalition, and deputy director of Privacy International for five years. King commented "The problem, at its heart, is that there’s a conflict as to whether my previous work and views are a positive or negative thing. They are both the reason I was hired and the reason my clearance was refused by the Home Office vetting team."
Investigatory Powers Commissioners have been:
March 2017 – October 2019 Sir Adrian Fulford
October 2019 – present Sir Brian Leveson
Authorities allowed to access Internet connection records
List of authorities allowed to access Internet connection records without a warrant:
Metropolitan Police Service
City of London Police
Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
Police Service of Scotland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Royal Navy Police
Royal Military Police
Royal Air Force Police
Security Service
Secret Intelligence Service
GCHQ
Ministry of Defence
Department of Health
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
National Crime Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Department for Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
NHS National Services Scotland
Competition and Markets Authority
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Department for Communities (Northern Ireland)
Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland)
Department of Justice (Northern Ireland)
Financial Conduct Authority
Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
Food Standards Agency
Food Standards Scotland
Gambling Commission
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Health and Safety Executive
Independent Police Complaints Commission
Information Commissioner
NHS Business Services Authority
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
Health & Social Care Business Services Organisation (Northern Ireland)
Office of Communications
Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
Scottish Ambulance Service Board
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serious Fraud Office
Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
Public debate
The draft Bill generated significant public debate about balancing intrusive powers and mass surveillance with the needs of the police and intelligence agencies to gain targeted access to information as part of their investigations. Although the Home Office said the Bill will be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, the content of the draft Bill has raised concerns about the impact on privacy.
Privacy campaigners say the bill clearly lays out the mass surveillance powers that would be at the disposal of the security services, and want it amended so that the surveillance is targeted and based on suspicion and argue that the powers are so sweeping, and the bill's language so general, that not just the security services but also government bodies will be able to analyse the records of millions of people even if they are not under suspicion.
In January 2016 a report published by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament recommended that the bill should focus on the right to privacy. Committee chairman, Conservative MP Dominic Grieve, said: "We have therefore recommended that the new legislation contains an entirely new part dedicated to overarching privacy protections, which should form the backbone of the draft legislation around which the exceptional powers are then built. This will ensure that privacy is an integral part of the legislation rather than an add-on." The committee also recommended that Class bulk personal dataset warrants are removed from the legislation. Dominic Grieve later clarified the extent of these freedoms, "the principle of the right to privacy against the state is maintained except if there is a good and sufficient reason why that should not happen."
Gavin E. L. Hall, a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, argues that public fear of the bill is not justified, writing that there are benefits to formally codifying in law what state security services can and cannot do and that "While it may technically be possible under the bill to impugn individual freedom, John Bull has little to fear."
The Register argued the Act enshrines parallel construction in law and allows the state to lie about the origins of evidence in court, treating it as infallible, and prohibit the defendant from questioning it.
Article 19, a freedom of expression campaign group, criticized the Act as one of the most draconian pieces of surveillance legislation passed worldwide, warning that it "offers a template for authoritarian regimes and seriously undermining the rights of its citizens to privacy and freedom of expression". The Chinese government cited the Snooper's Charter (officially the Draft Communications Data Bill) when defending its own intrusive anti-terrorism legislation.
Recent Wikileaks articles suggest that phone and digital device tracking both direct and indirect (e.g. FM radio blipping via Android exploit) also mentioned in Register posts by "Anonymous Coward" to covertly follow subjects have been used in the past but for operational reasons it is not clear if they are still used. The original poster has since decided to cooperate with the authorities and not comment further publicly on this subject, though the technique was independently rediscovered before the article in question was released.
Legal challenge and ruling
In November 2016, a petition demanding the law be repealed gained 100,000 signatures. In December 2016, pornographic media site xHamster redirected UK traffic to the petition. In March 2017, Liberty, a human rights organisation, raised £50,000 via crowd funding towards legal actions against the bill. Silkie Carlo, policy officer at Liberty, said:
In April 2018 the High Court of Justice ruled that the Investigatory Powers Act violates EU law. The government had until 1 November 2018 to amend the legislation. On 31 October 2018 The Data Retention and Acquisition Regulations 2018 came into force to address this ruling. These regulations increased the threshold for accessing communications data only for the purposes of serious crime (defined as offences which are capable of being sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 12 months or more) and requires that authorities consult an independent Investigatory Powers Commissioner before requesting data. The regulations also included a loophole where rapid approval can be made internally without independent approval but with a three-day expiry and with subsequent review by the independent body. Most debates about the regulations have been about the definition of "serious crime" with many arguing that the threshold should be at three years.
Implementation
It was revealed in 2021 that two British ISPs were collaborating on a government initiative for the collection of Internet Connection Records.
See also
Intelligence Act (France)
Draft Communications Data Bill, a draft bill produced for consultation in 2012 but never introduced to Parliament
(German law)
Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
Patriot Act
References
External links
Full text of the act as enacted at legislation.gov.uk
Surveillance
Government databases in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement techniques
Counter-terrorism
Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
National security policies
Surveillance databases
2015 in British law
Home Office (United Kingdom)
GCHQ
2015 in British politics
Data laws of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2016
Theresa May |
48544350 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enduro/X | Enduro/X | Enduro/X is an open-source middleware platform for distributed transaction processing. It is built on proven APIs such as X/Open group's XATMI and XA. The platform is designed for building real-time microservices based applications with a clusterization option. Enduro/X functions as an extended drop-in replacement for Oracle Tuxedo. The platform uses in-memory POSIX Kernel queues which insures high interprocess communication throughput.
Services
The platform allows runtime system patching, without service interruption. The system monitors running processes, and restarts them after a crash or hang. System configuration can be dynamically reloaded and it provides a cluster facility, allowing two or more instances to be joined in peer-to-peer manner. Enduro/X is written in C and provides native APIs for C/C++. Mavimax provides bindings are provided for Go, Java programming languages. Community provides bindings for Python, PHP and Perl. Thus effectively Enduro/X may be used as language interoperability tool between supported programming languages.
Technology
Currently Enduro/X works on Linux kernels starting from 2.6.12. The most critical Linux feature is epoll() on POSIX queues. This Linux functionality provides the mechanism for one queue - multiple servers, where Enduro/X servers are polling over the queues. Enduro/X developers pushed the EPOLLEXCLUSIVE flag inclusion into Linux kernel mainline (starting from version 4.5). The patch improved the Enduro/X response in case if hundreds of executables are providing the same service. Particularly kernel is not doing thundering herd type behavior anymore by waking up all binaries waiting on queue. Now only single receiver of the service call is woken. In some workloads the Enduro/X applications gets significant boost. The test case for the patch increased the performance of the workload from the 860 seconds to 24 sec.
Starting with Enduro/X version 3.1.2 production grade support for FreeBSD, IBM AIX (versions 6.1 and 7.1) and Oracle Solaris V11 is added. V3.1.2 introduced experimental support for Apple macOS and Cygwin. Under Unix platforms where Posix queues are available, they are employed so that for every ATMI server/service pair there is separate queue open and caller service chooses queue in round robin mode. As for MacOS there is no support for Posix queues in operating system, Enduro/X uses emulated Posix queues which are based on memory mapped files in tandem with Posix thread's process shared mutexes. For FreeBSD Posix queues can be polled too, thus Enduro/X on FreeBSD works in the say way as Linux with one queue-multiple servers. The polling on FreeBSD is done with help of kqueue.
With version 6.0 System V queues are preferred IPC mechanisms for Unix platforms other than FreeBSD and Linux. The System V queues also gives single queue - multiple servers (SQMS) message distribution approach for effective load balancing. To load balance in SQMS mode with System V queues, XATMI server must be configured to use request address (logical channel/queue) on which all XATMI servers advertises same services. This Queue mode is available for Oracle Solaris and IBM AIX. For MacOS still emulated Posix queue are used, due to fact that it is not possible to adjust queue capacity on particular operating system.
Features
Standards based APIs - SCA, The Open Group XATMI
Communication types - Synchronous, Asynchronous, Conversational, Publish/subscribe
Typed buffers
UBF (Unified Buffer Format) which provides emulation of Tuxedo's FML/FML32 format. UBF if high performance binary protocol buffer format. Buffer is indexed by binary search on fixed data types. As from version v8.0, support for recursive UBF buffers, PTR and VIEW fields has been added.
STRING buffer format.
CARRAY (byte array) buffer format.
JSON buffer format, automatic conversion between JSON and UBF available.
VIEW buffer (starting from version 5.0+). This offer C structure sending between processes in cross platform way. Also this allows to map UBF fields to VIEW fields, thus helping developer quicker to develop applications, by combining UBF and VIEW buffers.
Transaction Management - Global Transactions - Two-phase commit protocol - X/Open XA
XA interface emulation for PostgreSQL
Clustering - on peer-to-peer basis
Event broker (also called publish and subscribe messaging)
System process monitoring and self healing (pings and restarts)
SOA Service cache. XATMI services can be cached to LMDB database. Resulting that the next call to service from any local client receives results directly from cache (mainly from direct memory read).
Dynamic re-configuration
Custom server polling extensions
XATMI sub-system is able to work with out main application server daemon (ndrxd)
Main application server daemon (ndrxd) can be restarted (if crashed). When started back it enters in learning mode for some period of time, in which in gathers information about system, what services are running, etc. After learning period, it starts to do normal operations
Available tpforward() call
ATMI server threads may become clients, and can do tpcall()
ATMI call timeout configuration via tptoutset() API call
Extensive logging & debugging. Enduro/X logging can be configured per binary with different log levels. As ATMI servers can be started outside of appserver, it is possible to debug them from programming IDE or with tools like valgrind.
For quality assurance project uses automated unit-testing and integration-testing
Built in ATMI service profiling.
Environment variables can be updated for XATMI server processes without full application reboot.
Generic client process monitor (cpm). Subsystem allows to start/stop/monitor client executables. At client process crashes, cpm will start it back. Massive client administration feature allows easy definition of many similar executables (with sub-section ranges) and in the same way it is very easy to manage them all together by regexp masks.
Starting with version 5.2 Enduro/X provides configuration data encryption feature, so that software which is built on top of Enduro/X may comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI/DSS).
Starting with version 6.0.17 for XATMI server and client processes max resident and virtual memory limit can be set. Thus when limit is reached, the processes are gracefully restarted. This particular feature is welcome in environments where vendor have delivered binaries with memory leaks, thus in production environments these limits may help temporarily cope with the situation until resolved by developer.
TMIB API for system information gathering.
NetXMS agent for monitoring client and server processes, queues, services, machine and cluster.
Full support of build tools (buildserver, buildclient, buildtms).
XATMI service dispatch threading.
Data Dependent Routing support for UBF buffers.
Automatic transactions for XATMI servers.
Service priority handling.
On the fly log setting changing and log rotation for any Enduro/X related program.
Latent Command Framework for custom real-time command publishing to processes.
Performance
Several benchmarks have been made with the Enduro/X middleware and it shows that it competes with Oracle Tuxedo and ZeroMQ quite well. Enduro/X was faster than Tuxedo 30% in 56 KB data block range. Enduro/X was significantly faster than ZeroMQ in 10-20KB range. Also for test performed with RabbitMQ Enduro/X showed its strength and was ahead of the competitor. For the RPC calls, Enduro/X was several times ahead, for send only calls, RabbitMQ was bit closer to Enduro/X.
Subsystems
Enduro/X contains different sub-modules which extends the application server and middleware functionality.
Queuing subsystem
Enduro/X provides a queuing subsystem called TMQ (Transactional Message Queue). This facility provides persistent queues that allows applications to explicitly enqueue and dequeue messages from named queues. Queues can be ordered by message en-queue time in LIFO or FIFO order. Queues are managed by an XA compliant resource manager allowing queue operations to participate in distributed transactions. An automated queue forwarding feature is provided that will remove entries from a queue and invoke an associated Enduro/X ATMI services, placing the reply message on an associated reply queue and failed messages to failure queue.
Configuration services
Enduro/X offers applications to use ini file based configuration reading via special XATMI server, provided in package, named "cconfsrv". Basically via standard tpcall() user application is able to read configuration files (can be separate ini file or folder with them). Technique allows to use the sub-sections with key/value inheritance from main section.
Trace logging services
Enduro/X introduced new set of API function named tplog. This allows user to use the same C based high-performance debug logging facilities which Enduro/X uses internally. It is possible to redirect all logging by thread bases files. Also there are APIs for "request logging", which means that user and Enduro/X can do logging in separate files for each request (e.g. log by session id, log by username, etc.)
Enduro/X Connect package
Enduro/X Connect package provides generic way for exposing XATMI services for outer world. Thus service can be invoked as REST normal services. The package provides functions for converting message internal messages to JSON format and vice versa. Web service module is extensible and provides several options for data conversion between formats. Module additionally supports file uploading, static content serving and orchestration of global transactions over the web service interface.
Enduro/X Connect package also provides module for accessing outer world web services via internal XATMI service call
Third connectivity component is in Enduro/X Connect package is generic TCP/IP connector which provides bi-directional XATMI service API to the TCP/IP sockets. Such functionality simplifies application development for IoT and Banking industries, where the data for different reasons needs to be sent in custom binary protocols, such as ISO8583.
Application Server for Go (ASG)
ASG is bindings project on top of the Enduro/X. Authors considers these binding as application server for go, because Golang projects are linked statically and by default there is no such thing as components. Enduro/X allows to run separate executable binaries, which represents stateless services. These services can be reloaded on the fly without service interruption. Also platform allows to run distributed transaction processing by using Golang. Developers provides modified Oracle DB OCI8 drivers for Go, which supports XA transactions. Enduro/X ASG provides first ever distributed transaction facility for Golang..
Enduro/X Java
Enduro/X version 7.0 offers binding for Java. Full features XATMI servers and client processes may be written Java. Framework is based on multi-processing principle, so that XATMI servers and clients have its own copy of JVM. Requirements for XATMI server/service classes are minimal, thus framework may be considered as POJO application server. XA two phase commit can be used too with standard JDBC drivers. Transactions are managed by standard Enduro/X Core transaction manager to which JDBC drivers are loaded for transaction orchestration. Binding package also offer Java Linker process called exjld. It offers option to link java objects (jar files) to standard executable process with dependency to libjvm and libjava. Thus all jars may be packed in executable process, making Java software delivery simpler, now each process may contain all its dependencies, thus allowing different executables to use different versions of common jar dependencies.
As server process both java executable with classpath or linked java binaries are supported, ndrxd daemon can boot both of them.
Enduro/X-PHP
Full client bindings are available for PHP5. Client PHP processes might compile a loadable module or compile the Enduro/X process inside the PHP. When PHP process is running as client, it must be present in Enduro/X Application environment, that could be done when application is hosted under the same user where PHP app runs (Apache or so) or for the PHP user creating a micro environment which further connects to main application server via tpbridge process. Module is available here .
Enduro/X-Perl
Client and server bindings are available for Perl scripting language. Perl module is available here .
Acquisition
The Enduro/X was acquired from ATR Baltic, Ltd by Mavimax Ltd on February, 2017 with full rights to the source code and current agreements.
History
Enduro/X was developed as closed source project by ATR Baltic. The development begun in December 2009 and first production customers (mainly banks) where put on the system in late 2012, at the time Enduro/X reached version 1.0. The project was open sourced in 2015, with version v2.3.2. From that event, all the development is made publicly available. Constantly new features are added with every major version release. Till version 6.0 Enduro/X was available under GNU GPLv2 license, starting from Enduro/X 6.0, project is moved to GNU AGPLv3 license. Starting with version 7.0, license is eased for middleware usage from Java and Go programming languages. The statement is that AGPL used by Enduro/X does not affect the Java or Go code which uses Enduro/X. Thanks to these changes, now Enduro/X Java and Enduro/X Go (ASG) modules now are released under LGPL v3, thus Java and Go projects may use middleware commercially with any extra license, while the support is provided commercially.
See also
ZeroMQ
RabbitMQ
References
External links
Official website
Free software |
48549837 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions%20to%20the%20November%202015%20Paris%20attacks | Reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks | On the night of 13 November 2015, Paris suffered a series of terror attacks. In reaction to those events, many individuals, governments, and other organisations around the world expressed their solidarity with France and with the victims. Many world leaders issued statements, mostly strongly condemning the attacks and vowing to stand by and support France. Public vigils took place in many international cities, and a number of world landmarks were illuminated in the colours of the French flag. Members of the public expressed their solidarity through social media by sharing images, notably the "Peace for Paris" symbol, designed by the French graphic designer Jean Jullien, and through the slogans, "Pray for Paris" and "Je suis Paris" (itself a reference to the phrase "Je suis Charlie", which was shared widely in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris on 7 January 2015).
International organisations
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: A declaration released by the 21 member states of the APEC said "Under the shadow cast by the terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut, and against Russian aircraft over the Sinai, and elsewhere, we strongly condemn all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism in all their forms and manifestations."
: Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma condemned the "despicable" attacks, expressed her condolences to the people of France, and wished those injured in the attacks a speedy recovery.
: The ASEAN released a statement on behalf of its 10 states condemning the attacks and extending its condolences and sympathies to the French Government and the families of the victims of the attacks. The ASEAN pledged to continue the fight against terrorism, saying "ASEAN stands united with the Government of France and remains resolute in its continued fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."
Anglican Communion: Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby described the news as a "desperate and deep tragedy" and wrote that "We weep with those affected and pray for deliverance and justice."
The Arab League condemned the attacks stating "Such despicable terror attacks, with their dimensions, gravity and ugliness, target humanity everywhere."
: The leaders of CARICOM unanimously condemned the attacks.
Commonwealth of Nations: Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth Secretary-General stated "My heart goes out to all those who have been touched by this unspeakable tragedy. The Commonwealth stands in solidarity with all democracies in the face of violent extremism. Everyone who believes in tolerance, understanding and the rule of law must stand united against those who would destroy these treasured values".
Commonwealth realms: Queen Elizabeth II sent a message to the President of France saying "Prince Philip and I have been deeply shocked and saddened by the terrible loss of life in Paris. We send our most sincere condolences to you, the families of those who have died and the French people."
Economic Community of West African States: Speaker of the Parliament of ECOWAS, Ike Ekweremadu called the attacks "acts of brazen savagery" and said the attacks were not only a loss to France but a loss to humanity. He said that a majority of peace-loving people would never surrender to a few, saying "They will never bomb the world to submission" Ekweremadu offered condolences to France on behalf of the ECOWAS Parliament.
: Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland expressed his "shock at the horrific attacks" and pledged that "Europe will stand strong in defending our common values."
Commission Vice-President Federica Mogherini and EU defence ministers backed France's request for help in military missions after they invoked Article 42.7 of the Treaty of the European Union for the first time since its creation. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, rejected calls to rethink the European Union's policy on migration. Dismissing suggestions that open borders led to the attacks, Juncker said he believed that the attacks should be met with a stronger display of liberal values, including internal open borders. The Czech Prime Minister expressed disappointment over Juncker's response.
The attacks prompted European officials—particularly German officials—to re-evaluate their stance on EU policy toward migrants, especially in light of the ongoing European migrant crisis. UN agencies called on governments to provide reception centres for the registration and screening of the refugees, as well as accommodation to protect them, especially the children. Many German officials believed a higher level of scrutiny was needed, and criticised the position of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while the German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel defended her stance, saying that a lot of migrants were fleeing terrorism.
Interpol: Secretary General Jürgen Stock condemned the "cold-blooded, cowardly" attacks and expressed condolences to those affected by them. Stock said that Interpol stands in solidarity with France and all victims of terrorism around the world. He pledged Interpol's support with any investigations made as a result of the attacks, saying "INTERPOL is united with France and has pledged its full operational support to its authorities as they investigate these barbaric attacks."
: Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the terrorist attack, expressing shock at the "horrific terrorist attacks across Paris," and stated that "terrorism will never defeat democracy." All flags at NATO HQ were flown at half-staff also after the attacks to show solidarity with France.
Nordic Council: President of the Nordic Council Höskuldur Þórhallsson condemned the attacks, and quoted "Liberté, égalité, fraternité – liberty, equality, fraternity. Just as the national motto of France could also be the motto of the Nordic Region, so we see the attacks on the people of Paris as an attack on ourselves and on our values" and continued saying "Nevertheless, I think it's difficult to find words to express the horror of seeing innocent civilians lose their lives to senseless acts of terrorism".
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: Secretary-General José Ángel Gurría released a statement expressing his condolences to the people of France and a letter to the French president, saying "Our heartfelt condolences, thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of our host country France and our host city Paris and most particularly the families of the victims of these atrocities. This is a moment when we must all stand more united than ever in defence of the freedoms our democracies hold dear."
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie: Secretary General Michaëlle Jean condemned the attacks, stating "I am deeply shocked and dismayed by the cowardly and odious attacks that cause suffering and trauma. I condemn in the strongest terms these immoral and senseless attacks intended to spread terror across the world. These unacceptable and unjustifiable attacks that occur in the aftermath of those perpetrated in Beirut remind us of the need to resist together to the scourge that is terrorism."
The OIC, the Organisation of Islamic Countries, "condemned in the strictest terms the terrorist attacks", sending "sincere condolences to the families of the victims as well as to the Government and people of France" while stating a "firm rejection of any terrorist act that violates the right to life and try to undermine universal human values including the values of freedom and equality that France has consistently promoted."
: Secretary General Ernesto Samper said that "terrorism is a global epidemic that must be fought with universal solidarity with the victims." In a statement, the organization says that South America expressed its "dismay at this barbarism" that took place in Paris, and provides "solidarity" to the French people.
: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks on Paris, calling them "despicable" and stating that he trusted the French authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. Ban also extended his condolences to families of the victims and wished a quick recovery to those who were injured.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2249: In a separate statement the 15 members of the UNSC also condemned the "barbaric and cowardly" attacks on the civilians.
Government reactions
European Union
European Commission and Parliament
The attack interrupted final negotiations over the Budget of the European Union, with participants taking breaks to watch TV news of the events. Commission Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva said that the events encouraged shocked negotiators to end the talks quickly, with a final agreement five days before 18 November deadline. Commission Vice-President Federica Mogherini and EU defence ministers backed France's request for help in military missions after they invoked Article 42.7 of the Treaty of the European Union for the first time since its creation.
As a result, the United Kingdom has already stated its intention to help France directly in operations in Syria, while some countries intend to aid France by taking over activities in Africa, namely in Mali and the Central African Republic. Germany will send up to 650 troops to Mali and 50 military trainers to Kurdish forces in Iraq. Spain, Lithuania and Slovenia announced similar actions.
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, rejected calls to rethink the European Union's policy on migration. Dismissing suggestions that open borders led to the attacks, Juncker said he believed that the attacks should be met with a stronger display of liberal values, including internal open borders. The Czech Prime Minister expressed disappointment over Juncker's response.
European Council
The attacks prompted European officials—particularly German officials—to re-evaluate their stance on EU policy toward migrants, especially in light of the ongoing European migrant crisis. Many German officials believed a higher level of scrutiny was needed, and criticised the position of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while the German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel defended her stance, saying that a lot of migrants were fleeing terrorism.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that he would be meeting with EU ministers on 20 November in Brussels to discuss how to deal with terrorism across the European Union.
Meeting reports indicated that Schengen area border controls have been tightened for EU citizens entering or leaving, with passport checks and systematic screening against biometric databases. This is based on a temporary measure; changing the rules on a long-term basis could take months.
Poland's European affairs minister designate Konrad Szymański declared that, in the wake of the attacks, he saw no possibility of enacting the recent EU refugee relocation scheme. The new Prime Minister of Poland, Beata Szydło, while acknowledging that Poland is bound by international treaties, said she would ask the EU to change its decision on refugee quotas. Szydlo later stated that Poland would honour the commitment made by the previous government to accommodate 9,000 refugees.
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, rejected the concept of mandatory resettlement quotas.
Andrej Babiš, Czech deputy prime minister, proposed closing the Schengen border. Czech Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, said the attacks were a wake-up call for Europe. Sobotka also criticized president Miloš Zeman for supporting anti-Islamic groups and spreading hatred, according to Reuters, whose report adds that the Sobotka government has been deporting migrants.
Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, said he was proven right about the links between Middle East migrants and security.
Canada
Canada maintained its commitment to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees, and in early November, set a challenging deadline, the end of 2015. By 24 November however, it was clear that no more than 10,000 could be accommodated by year end; the rest would arrive by March 2016. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the accompanying security measures would protect Canadians. By 20 November, financial plans were being made for the proposed funding for six years, estimated at $1.1 billion. Discussions as to how and where refugees would be resettled were also under way. However, an expert, Gerard Van Kessel, retired director-general of the refugees branch at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, warned on 23 November 2015 that a five or six weeks is not adequate to complete security checks and resettle 25,000 people.
All of the provinces had agreed to accept refugees and all but one provided specifics as to the number they would be able to support. On 22 November 2015, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that (according to unnamed sources) Canada will limit the acceptance of Syrian refugees to only women, children and families, screening out unaccompanied men. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale assured Canadians that a robust screening process would be used overall, but admitted that some checks would be done once the refugees were already in Canada.
However, a criminologist, Barry Cartwright of Simon Fraser University is convinced that it's impossible to do thorough security checks "in a region where there are basically no recognized police departments."
United States
The US House of Representatives passed the American SAFE Act of 2015, which makes it more difficult for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to enter the United States. The bill failed to pass the Senate. At least 31 state governors said that they opposed accepting Syrian refugees into their states, although the decision to accept refugees belongs to the federal government; numerous mayors of major US cities have said they would welcome more refugees.
The United Nations asked Congress and governors to continue accepting Syrian refugees who had been vetted by security measures as an example to other countries.
Other nations' responses
Many world leaders and governments expressed their condemnation of the attacks and their condolences to the victims. These included:
Africa
: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said "Algeria strongly condemns these terrorist crimes, which attest, unfortunately once more, to the fact that terrorism is a cross-border scourge."
: Head of State José Eduardo dos Santos expressed sorrow and solidarity with the French people.
: The Government of Benin said in a statement "The Beninese government and people are affected and deeply shocked by the horrible terrorist attack that hit France." A day of mourning was held on 16 November in which flags around the country were flown at half-mast and a minute of silence was held in remembrance of the victims of terrorist attacks in Paris, West Africa and the rest of the world.
: President Joseph Kabila expressed shock at the attacks and offered his condolences. He affirmed the Congolese people's solidarity towards the French in the fight against terrorism.
: President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi telephoned Hollande and offered condolences on behalf of the Egyptian people to the French government and people for the victims of the despicable terrorist attack. He affirmed Egypt's solidarity with France and condemnation of terrorism in all its forms. El-Sisi also insisted that these terrorist acts occurring in different parts of the world will not deter these nations and peoples from fighting terrorism and extremism and their destructive and extreme ideologies. The Great Pyramid of Giza was lit up with the flags of France, Lebanon and Russia.
: Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn condemned the attacks, and Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom offered condolences saying "Our sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims of the terror attack in Paris. Our solidarity is with the people and government of France."
: President John Mahama condemning the "despicable" attacks and expressing condolences towards the families of the victims who were killed. He wished the survivors a speedy recovery.
: President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a statement issued hours after the attack, condemned the murder of innocent civilians in cold blood, stating that Kenya has suffered similar attacks. This was in reference to the Garissa University College attack earlier in 2015, and the Westgate shopping mall attack, which were primarily targeted at civilians. He added that Kenya was ready to offer every assistance possible, and that he would continue to relentlessly push the country's war against terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab and their support networks.
: President Hery Rajaonarimampianina released a statement expressing his sympathy following the attacks. The Madagascan foreign minister sent a message of condolence to the French foreign minister.
: Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth said that Mauritius "unreservedly condemns terrorism, in all its forms and remains committed to extend full support to the international community to combat terror." He expressed his condolences in a letter to President Hollande on behalf of himself and the people of Mauritius.
: King Mohammed VI offered "most saddened" condolences to the French President, the families of the victims and to French citizens, wishing a speedy recovery for the wounded. He condemned "in the strongest terms, on behalf of the Moroccan people and in my own name, these vile terrorist acts," and expressed "full solidarity and support in this ordeal."
: President Hage Geingob writes in a short message of condolence to the French government: "They have strengthened our resolve to ensure that the ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité ring true as we persevere in our common fight against hate and intolerance." Namibia's secretary of international affairs, Selma Ashipala-Musavyi, said: "As a member of the community of nations, we are shocked and dismayed by what has happened. We condemn the attacks and stand together with the French people and their government."
: President Muhammadu Buhari released a statement expressing his shock at learning of the attacks and offering his condolences to the people and government of France. Buhari condemned terrorism and called on the international to work together against it.
: Foreign Affairs minister Louise Mushikiwabo said that Rwandans express sympathy to those affected by the Paris attacks and that "These are times for international solidarity indeed!"
: Minister of Tourism and Culture Alain St.Ange signed a book of condolences at the French embassy in the Seychelles and called for increased security, saying "Today it is safety and security that have become unique selling points for tourism destinations, and the Community of Nations must continue to work together to make the world a safer place."
: President Jacob Zuma sent his condolences to the people and the government of France in a message sent to President Hollande following the attacks. The Department of International Relations and Cooperation confirmed that it was in contact with its embassy in France to ensure the safety of South African citizens in France.
: Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Al-Sadiq issued a statement condemning the attacks, saying that such acts are "against all religious and human values."
: President Faure Gnassingbé condemned the attacks. In a letter to Francois Hollande, he writes "In these tragic and extremely painful hours for France, I wish to express my emotion, my compassion and solidarity of the entire people of Togo who is in shock and deeply scarred by the heavy toll of these unprecedented attacks."
: President Beji Caid Essebsi condemned the attacks, calling them "barbarous acts." He also met with President Hollande on 15 November.
: Foreign Affairs Minister Harry Kalaba condemned the attacks, saying they were a drawback on humanity. He also signed a book of condolences at the French embassy in Zambia.
: President Robert Mugabe expressed his condolences at the G20 summit in Turkey. Minister of State Security Kembo Mohadi said that Zimbabwe was obliged to fight terrorism and that members of the Southern African Development Community were sharing intelligence in order to combat terrorism. He also said that Zimbabwean and Zambian security officials met to discuss terrorism among other topics.
Americas
: President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner condemned the attacks.
Prime Minister Perry Christie issued a statement saying "We condemn these barbaric acts in the strongest terms. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims."
: President Evo Morales voiced solidarity with France.
: President Dilma Rousseff said that she was "appalled by the terrorist barbarity," repudiating the attacks. The Ministry of External Relations of Brazil, in a statement, expressed "deep sorrow" on the part of the Brazilian government through conveying condolences to the relatives of victims and declaring solidarity with the French people and the Government of France. Brazilian citizens who are in France are also getting support from the Brazilian Consulate in Paris through a phone line.
: Governor General of Canada David Johnston issued a statement reading "Canada grieves for Paris and all of France... [W]e will stand together for the values we hold dear with resolve and steadfast solidarity", going on to express his and his wife's "outrage" and "condolences to those who have been victimized by these heinous acts." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed solidarity with Canada's "French cousins" and said Canada offered all possible assistance to the government and people of France in wake of the attacks. "[W]e'll continue to engage with our allies around the world in ensuring the safety of Canadians and others both here at home and around the world."
: President Michelle Bachelet condemned the attacks, calling them "cowardly acts of terror".
: President Juan Manuel Santos said "We condemn attacks in Paris. Our solidarity goes to the french people and President François Hollande. Coincidentally I talked to him today."
: Secretary Raúl Castro wrote to President Hollande to express his condolences on behalf of the people and government of Cuba.
: President Rafael Correa called for solidarity after the attacks.
: President Alejandro Maldonado, Vice President Alfonso Fuentes, Jimmy Morales and Jafeth Cabrera all condemned the attacks.
: The Government of Guyana said "Guyana condemns, in the strongest possible terms, these coordinated despicable acts of pure evil perpetrated on innocent citizens which resulted in the needless loss of life. Guyana sends condolences and prayerful thoughts to our friends in France and all French citizens throughout the world."
: President Michel Martelly condemned the attacks in an official statement, saying "The Head of State strongly condemns these atrocities of terrorist nature that harm not only the French people but also the humanity as a whole that needs more than ever to close ranks to defend the right to freedom, tolerance and life." He also gave his condolences to France, saying "On behalf of the Government and people of Haiti, the President of the Republic sends his sympathies to President François Hollande, the French people and to the relatives of the victims in these difficult times. Haiti remains in solidarity with France and reaffirms its support on the occasion of this drama."
: Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller Jamaica joined "all peace-loving peoples" to condemn the attacks as "heartless and barbaric" and pledged to stand "in defence of the universal values of life, liberty and peace for which Jamaica stands as a nation. We pledge our solidarity and support in concert with the global peace-loving community to root out and destroy the acts of evil that those who hate our way of life and values would unleash upon us".
: President Enrique Peña Nieto condemned the attacks and sent condolences to the French people and the victims' families. He stated that the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs was working with French officials to assist any Mexican nationals in need of assistance in Paris. While heading to Turkey for the G-20 Summit, Peña Nieto was interviewed at the airport and reiterated his solidarity with France. He stated that the incident was likely going to be discussed at the Antalya summit.
: President Juan Carlos Varela condemned the attacks and ordered increased security at the Panama Canal.
: President Horacio Cartes condemned the terrorist acts, calling them "despicable terror attacks".
: President Ollanta Humala strongly condemned the attacks and encouraged solidarity.
: Saint Lucian politician Gale Rigobert, speaking on behalf of Saint Lucia, condemned the attacks and made a call "to stand in solidarity with France and join in praying for the people of that country."
: President Barack Obama stated that the attacks were not just attacks on Paris and people of France, but were "an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share." As of 18 November, thirty states declared they will refuse to accept Syrian refugees, as they believe it to be too dangerous following the Paris attacks.
: The Government of Uruguay condemned the attacks and called for a renewed fight against terror.
: President Nicolás Maduro condemned the terrorist acts in Paris and expressed solidarity with Hollande and the French people.
Asia
: President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani said "The brutal attacks in Paris prove that global terrorism does not recognize borders. The people of Afghanistan stand with France on this terrible day. Terrorism is a serious threat to the entire world and we are united in the struggle."
: The Kingdom of Bahrain strongly condemned the attacks and offered condolences and consolation to the government of France and to the French people.
: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated "I am deeply shocked by the series of terrorist attacks in Paris that killed so many innocent people and left many others injured. I along with the people and the government of Bangladesh strongly condemn these acts of terror and stand in solidarity with the people and the government of France." In addition, President Abdul Hamid strongly condemned the attacks and prayed for the souls of the slain victims and expressed his condolences to the bereaved family members.
: Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, in his condolence letter to the French President, condemned the attacks.
: In a letter addressed to Hollande, Prime Minister Hun Sen of the ruling Cambodian People's Party expressed "shock and consternation", while the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party also issued a statement condemning the "cruel attacks". A Cambodian restaurant Le Petit Cambodge was among the sites of the attacks.
: Premier Li Keqiang strongly condemned Paris terror attacks and delivered condolences and sympathy to the victims. Secretary Xi Jinping, in a message to President Hollande, wrote "on behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, and personally, condemn in the strongest terms the barbaric acts." Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius that China is willing to cooperate with France against terrorism which he describes as "the cancer of society." Wang said that China was "shocked" and condemns the attacks. He also added that China mourns for those killed in the attacks, expresses condolences to the families of people who were killed and injured due to the attacks.
: Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying condemned the attacks and expressed deep sympathies. The Hong Kong government issued an amber travel alert for France, and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel to France, in particular to the Île-de-France area.
: Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araújo said "Our hearts go out to the people of France, to all those sadly impacted by these traumatic events. They remain in our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time". Timor-Leste joins the global community in condemning the terrorist acts and stands in solidarity with the people of France.
: Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated "News from Paris is anguishing and dreadful. Prayers with families of the deceased. We are united with people of France in this tragic hour." while head of state President Pranab Mukherjee strongly condemned the attacks and stated that "India stands firmly by France, my heart goes out to its people."
: President Joko Widodo expressed condolences on the attack. He said that "Terrorism, regardless of form and reason, cannot be tolerated." He also asked the international community to join the fight against terrorism.
: Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed condolence to France and its people following the attacks and said that he condemns "terrorist operations at any forms" saying that Iran as a victim of terrorist attacks has been against all forms activities related to terrorism. He also added that Iran believes that terrorism and extremism is a threat not just limited in the Middle East region and urged anti-terrorism efforts not to be restricted to the region. President Hassan Rouhani has also postponed his visit to Italy and France due to the attacks and also strongly condemned the incident describing the attacks as crimes against humanity and expressed condolence to the French people and government.
: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said "We condemn and deplore the terrorist attacks in Paris, which emphasise that fighting terrorism calls for international efforts to eliminate it in all countries".
: Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani stated, "It is with great sadness that I learned of the horrific attacks on the people of Paris. I offer the deepest condolences, and the strongest solidarity, of the people of the Kurdistan Region. France has stood resolutely with the Kurdistan Region in our own struggle against terrorism, and we will stand with them in theirs. The challenge of defeating this threat unites so many nations and peoples around the world. It is a struggle between civilization and intolerance and barbarism. Attacks like this are designed to spread fear, but the international community must instead respond with a strengthened resolve. Indeed, this tragedy came one day after a great defeat for Daesh in Sinjar. Terrorism can, and will, be defeated."
: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed condolences in the terror attack that happened. He also ordered that the Israeli flag should be in half-mast. He said: "Israel stands shoulder to shoulder with President Francois Hollande and with the French people in the war against terrorism. I send condolences on behalf of the Israeli people to the families of the victims, and wish a speedy recovery to the injured." He also ordered security forces to tighten security.
: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga condemned the attacks, telling reporters that he felt "strong shock and outrage" to the attacks which he describes as "cruel and extremely cowardly acts of terrorism." Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan intends to cooperate with France in an ongoing "international fight" against terrorism. He also added that Japan stands with France. Security was boosted in locations related to French interests in Tokyo and other places in Japan such as the French Embassy in Tokyo. Prime Minister Shinzō Abe who was in Turkey ahead of a G-20 summit, observed a moment of silence together with his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, in honor of those killed in the Paris attacks. He said "We will stand against terrorism regardless of its reasons. We will stand in solidarity with the international community to prevent acts of terrorism."
: King Abdullah II condemned the attacks, stating that he "expressed strong condemnation and indignation at the cowardly terrorist act."
: President Nursultan Nazarbayev said, "Kazakhstan condemns terrorism and extremism in all forms as threats to the international security."
: Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah condemned the terrorist attacks, stating "these criminal acts of terrorism ... run counter to all teachings of holy faith and humanitarian values."
: President Almazbek Atambayev condemned the attacks and offered condolences, saying "Kyrgyzstan condemns terrorism in its all forms and supports efforts of the international community in fighting that threat".
: A statement issued by the Laotian Government said "We strongly condemn such acts by terrorists. The Lao PDR will continue to cooperate with the international community in the fight against all forms of terrorism".
: The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, strongly condemned the attacks as "barbaric" and expressed his solidarity with the French people. Statements of condemnation were also issued by militant groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. A joint statement was also issued by rebel groups fighting in Syria, such as Jaysh al-Islam, condemning the attack "in the strongest terms."
: Prime Minister Najib Razak expressed his shock about the attack, and condemns the "outrageous attacks in Paris on innocent civilians".
: Minister for Foreign Affairs Purevsuren Lundeg sent a letter of condolences and "strongly condemned the attack on universal values".
: Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli condemned the attack and offered condolences to the French President.
: Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong sent a message of sympathy to his French counterpart Laurent Fabius. The message expressed hope "that the French people would eradicate the aftermath of the heart-rending tragedy and bring back peace and stability at an early date."
: Sultan Qaboos bin Said condemned the attacks and offered his condolences to the French people. Under Secretary General of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Al Busaidi stated "The sad events in Paris are utterly deplorable. Our sympathy goes to the victims."
: The Foreign Office of Pakistan condemned the attacks and issued the following statement: "The people and government of Pakistan strongly condemn the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. We stand with them in their hour of grief. We pray for speedy recovery of the injured." Both the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain condemned the attacks and express solidarity with France. The National Assembly of Pakistan observed one minute silence over the incident.
: President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the terrorist attacks and extended his sympathy and solidarity with the French people and government.
: Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte issued a statement condemning the attacks that "showed not only premeditation but the cruelty that demands the greatest indignation from the world" and said that the Philippines mourns and stands shoulder to shoulder with France. Valte also urged Filipinos in Paris to cooperate with local authorities and said that the Department of Foreign Affairs through its embassy in Paris has been monitoring the situation. President Benigno Aquino III echoed Valte's statements expressing solidarity mentioning that France has stood shoulder to shoulder with the Philippines following the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). Foreign Undersecretary Laura del Rosario said to Agence France-Presse reporters on 14 November, that the attacks on Paris has prompted the organizers to impose "higher security" measures for the 2015 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting to be held from 18 to 19 November 2015 in Manila.
: Foreign Affairs Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah said that Qatar "strongly condemns these heinous attacks that have struck the French capital causing so many victims".
: The Saudi Government condemned the attacks, with the Saudi Press Agency releasing a statement from the Council of Senior Scholars saying "Terrorists are not sanctioned by Islam and these acts are contrary to values of mercy it brought to the world."
: President Tony Tan expressed his condolences saying "As France mourns the victims, Singapore stands in solidarity with the French people in this difficult time" while Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong condemned the attacks, calling them "heinous" and "an attack on our shared humanity." Within days, the Singapore Police Force and Singapore Civil Defence conducted an emergency preparedness exercise codenamed 'Exercise Heartbeat' that took place on 18 November 2015 at Toa Payoh, Marina Bay and City Hall, as well as at Sentosa on 23 November 2015.
: President Park Geun-hye offered her condolences over the attacks and pledged support for global counter-terrorism efforts, stating that "terrorism is a crime against humanity. It is never justified and should not be tolerated in any circumstance." She then states that South Korea will strongly support French efforts to root out terrorism and vowed to join international anti-terrorism efforts.
: President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe condemned the terrorist attack and conveyed the condolences to the people of France, calling on the International community to fight against terrorism.
: President Bashar al-Assad condemned the attackers while describing them as "savage terror," and compared the violence to the experiences of the Syrian people, saying, "What France suffered from savage terror is what the Syrian people have been enduring for over five years." Al-Assad, who is also fighting ISIS in Syria criticised the assistance provided by Western nations to rebels fighting his government. He stated that policies pursued in the region by France and other Western nations had ultimately aided the spread of terrorism.
: President Emomali Rakhmon condemned the attacks and gave condolences to the French people, stating "Tajikistan condemns categorically this inhuman act of a group of criminals," and "We are mourning together with you."
: Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha gave his condolences to those affected by the attacks, saying "On behalf of the Royal Thai Government and people of the Kingdom of Thailand, I wish to convey our deepest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families that have been affected by this tragic incident".
: President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan offered his condolences and support to France.
: President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung sent messages of condolences to their French counterparts over the heavy casualties caused by bloody attacks on civilians in Paris on 13 November.
Europe
: President Bujar Nishani and Prime Minister Edi Rama expressed their condolences.
: In a letter to the President of France, who also serves as Co-Prince of Andorra, the Prime Minister and Receiver General strongly condemned the attacks and expressed their solidarity with the French people. Flags were flown at half-mast.
: President Serzh Sargsyan said "Armenia is next to brother France in such a hard moment and is willing to make all support".
: President Heinz Fischer condemned the attacks and offered his condolences, saying "I am deeply shocked and appalled by the series of attacks in Paris. I express the French people and especially the families of the victims my deepest condolences. These are moments when we stick together firmly and must demonstrate unity against inhumanity."
: President Ilham Aliyev condemned the attacks, stating "We are extremely angered by this horrible incident, resolutely condemn terror and comprehensively support fight against all its manifestations. In this difficult time our thoughts are with the people of France, with you."
: President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said "With great pain in Belarus accepted the news of numerous casualties as a result of the terrorist attacks that took place in Paris on the night from 13 to 14 November 2015. On behalf of the Belarusian people and on my own behalf, I express my deepest condolences and words of support to the families and friends of those killed and injured, as well as all French people."
: King Philippe expressed the solidarity of Belgium with the French people and the families of the victims of these "heinous acts." Warning of the threat of an imminent Paris-style terror attack in Belgium, authorities in Belgium on 21 November 2015 imposed a security lockdown by shutting down the Brussels Metro, canceling football games, and advising citizens to avoid public spaces.
: The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a statement condemning the attacks and stating that "this vile, cowardly and mindless attack isn't just an attack on Paris and France, but an attack on all of humanity and the concept of democracy." They also added that stopping these attacks can only be done by being united and working together.
: In a condolence letter addressed to Francois Hollande, President Rosen Plevneliev strongly condemned the attacks against innocent people. Prime Minister Boyko Borissov declared "full support and sympathy" with the families of the victims and French authorities. At the same time Bulgaria declared that it withdraws from EU refugee relocation plan
: President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said she was "shocked" by the attacks and "deeply saddened by the loss of so many lives." She added that the people of Croatia stand with the people of France. Prime Minister Zoran Milanović called a news conference on 14 November and stated that Croatian security forces and agencies were on high alert. He also stated that he does not link the attacks to the European migrant crisis, with Croatia being the main transit country for entry into the Schengen Area. Croatian government also proclaimed 16 November 2015 to be the mourning day in solidarity with victims of the attack.
: President Nicos Anastasiades condemned the attacks, stating "Such cowardly acts are causing the outrage of the international community and every citizen".
: Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka sent condolences to his French counterpart Manuel Valls saying "he was shocked by the brutality of the terrorist attacks carried in Paris and it has filled his heart with deep sorrow." He expressed solidarity and sympathies of the Czech Republic and offered France all the necessary cooperation. Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek expressed support to the French president. He noted that such violence must be punished and we must not give up our lives and civilization we have built. President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Sobotka visited the French embassy in Prague, where they laid flowers and paid tribute. The Czech Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babiš stated that "it will be necessary to close the Schengen border." Prime Minister Sobotka said the attacks were a wake-up call for Europe: "I saw the images from Paris and I do not want something similar happening in Prague." However, Sobotka also criticized president Miloš Zeman for supporting anti-Islamic groups and spreading hatred, according to Reuters, whose report also adds that the government "under Sobotka" has been deporting migrants.
: Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen condemned the terrorist attacks and offered solidarity with France. "The extent of the attacks in Paris is incomprehensible and fills me with deep sorrow. It is a dark day in Europe," he said.
: The Government of Greenland also expressed its sympathy.
: Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand condemned the attack and gave her condolences to France, stating "We stand together with France, in the name of our common values. Estonia expresses solidarity with the French government in the fight against terrorism".
: Prime Minister Juha Sipilä expressed his shock and stated his thoughts are with Paris. President Sauli Niinistö strongly condemned the terrorist attacks. He said that Finland will give all possible support to France in the fight against terrorism.
: President Giorgi Margvelashvili expressed his condolences, and stated "All of Georgia was moved by the brutal terrorist acts in France that killed many people. This is a crime against all of humanity. The people of Georgia and I stand by you and express our firm solidarity to you in your efforts against terrorism. Please convey my sympathies to the families of those who were killed and I wish a speedy recovery to all those who were injured."
: Chancellor Angela Merkel offered her condolences to the French people, saying: "We, your German friends, we feel so close to you. We are crying with you." President Joachim Gauck said during a speech at Schloss Bellevue that "The grief does not stop at the Rhine. […] But the terrorists will not have the last word. That night will not have the last word." In a speech on 25 November, the Chancellor agreed that a high level of security was necessary in Germany but encouraged citizens to live normal lives. She also defended her refugee policy, stating that the country had a duty to protect those fleeing war and conflict.
: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed condolences to President Hollande. He said: "Last night's bloody terrorist attack in Paris was a blind but targeted strike. It was a blow against Europe, home of democracy and freedom, a blow against multiculturalism." The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following announcement: "The Greek people as a whole are shocked at the cowardly, deadly terrorist attacks that took place a short while ago in Paris. These attacks are attacks not only against France, but also against the whole of the civilized world and democracy itself."
: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared 15 November as a national day of mourning on state television, as an expression of solidarity with the French people, while warning that EU-imposed migrant quotas would spread terrorism in Europe. Orbán sent his condolences to the relatives of the victims and to every citizen of France. He added "Hungarian people stand by the French in these extremely difficult hours." Orbán rejected the concept of mandatory resettlement quotas. He reminded Europe that all of the terrorists in "are basically migrants ... [who] rejected Western values but still held EU passports" and indicated that there was a strong connection between terrorism and Muslim refugees. The Hungarian government decided to reinforce security measures countrywide, including the increasing of law enforcement presence in public areas and strengthen the protection of priority sites such as the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and Budapest Airport.
: President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson condemned the attacks, stating that they are an attack on the "civilization of our time, freedom, democracy and human rights." Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson also added "It is clear that these were acts of barbaric extremism and will have to be met with calm and restraint. We stand behind the French nation during these critical times, mindful of the French values of freedom, equality and fraternity."
: Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny in a statement said "My thoughts and those of all the Irish people are with the French people this evening. As ever we stand as one with them and will never bend to the evil of terrorism." He added on his official Twitter account: "This is a shocking attack on humanity. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families. We stand with France tonight." President Michael D. Higgins said he was shocked to learn of the unfolding events, "On behalf of the Irish people and on my own behalf I offer deepest sympathy through president Hollande to the people of France on this dreadful loss of life and appalling injuries."
: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi condemned the attacks, stating that with the attack to France, terrorists "have struck the whole world." He also uploaded a video on YouTube with his public speech, in Italian, directed to the people and government of France. The Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano said that the alert measures have been raised in the whole country and that the intelligence agents are now in direct contact with the French ones. It was also announced that the Italian government would spend €1 billion on both security and culture, saying that, "They want terror, we respond with culture that is stronger than ignorance."
: President Raimonds Vējonis condemned the attacks, and offered support to France, stating "This is one of the darkest hours for France and a big challenge for the whole Europe, its people and values. Today we must be strong and united to support each other and work together to tackle the biggest challenges Europe is facing right now." The government declared Monday 16 November a day of national mourning.
: President Dalia Grybauskaitė condemned the attack and gave her condolences to the French people.
: Luxembourg held a wreath laying ceremony was held at the French embassy in Luxembourg on the Monday following the attack. Flags were flown at half mast across the country and a minute of silence in memory of the victims was observed. Prime Minister Xavier Bettel attended the ceremony.
: President Gjorge Ivanov condemned the attacks, stating "We will not allow the terrorists to instill us with fear."
: Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that Malta's "solidarity goes out to [Francois Hollande] and people of France". He also announced that Malta would observe a minute's silence on Monday and ordered that the Maltese flag be flown at half mast on the Prime Ministers office, the Auberge de Castille.
: The Moldovan Parliament condemned the attacks and expressed Moldova's solidarity. Speaker Andrian Candu stated "My thoughts are with the injured people. I hope both physical and moral wounds will heal as quickly as possible." 16 November was a day of national mourning.
: Prince Albert II wrote an open letter to Hollande, expressing condolences on the behalf of Monaco.
: President Milo Đukanović offered support to France, saying that Montenegro "stands beside France in these difficult moments."
: Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: "Our thoughts are by the victims and their relatives. This is disgraceful, the whole nation empathizes with France. France can count on our support."
: King Harald V, Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Foreign Minister Børge Brende all sent their condolences, condemning the attacks.
: President Andrzej Duda declared his grief and solidarity over the attacks. Polish Minister for European affairs declared that Poland in wake of the attacks will renounce the EU plan for relocation of Middle Eastern refugees. A few days later however, the new Prime Minister of Poland Beata Szydło stated that Poland would indeed honor the commitment the previous government had made to accept thousands of refugees as part of EU's Relocation Plan, while also requesting the EU to change its decision on refugees. The decision to accept refugees may be contrary to a previous suggestion made by another member of her government that Syrian refugees might be sent back to Syria. However, Szydlo also made it clear the "government's top priority is the security of Poles."
: President Aníbal Cavaco Silva expressed his great consternation about the terrorist attacks in Paris and the high number of deaths, and the President of the Assembly of the Republic Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues sent a message to the President of the French National Assembly expressing his sincere condolences on behalf of himself and the Parliament. Also, the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and the opposition leader António Costa have expressed condolences and solidarity in letters to the French President. A French flag was unfurled on the façade of the Assembly of the Republic from 14 to 18 November. The Minister of Culture, the Mayor of Lisbon, the Ambassador of France and the representative of the Islamic community in Portugal were present in the lighting up of the Tower of Belém and the Mayor of Porto was present in the lighting up of the Rivoli Theatre. All condemned the terrorist acts.
: President Klaus Iohannis expressed his regrets about the incident and his sympathy with the French people, also calling for more determination in fighting terrorism. Other Romanian politicians also expressed solidarity with France and The French embassy in Bucharest opened an online condolence log on its website.
: President Vladimir Putin sent condolences and words of solidarity to Hollande and the French people, as well as the families and friends of the victims "in connection with the death of a large number of peaceful citizens in an unprecedented series of terrorist acts in Paris." The tragedy was an "additional proof of the barbaric nature of terrorism that is posing a challenge to human civilisation," he stressed. Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister of Russia, expressed condolences on behalf of the government and personally to his French counterpart Manuel Valls, calling to unite in the fight against extremism.
: President Tomislav Nikolić sent condolences to President Hollande and the people of France, stating "The dreadful news from Paris left us speechless, but you should know that, as always throughout history, we stand by France with fierce determination ready to offer help whenever needed." Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic also sent a letter of condolence, saying "We are a small country, we cannot help a lot, but if there is anything we can do, we will be there. We offer full support to the French people and government in combating the greatest plague of the modern world – terrorism." Flags were lowered to half-mast for three days.
: President Andrej Kiska condemned the attacks, stating "We are shocked, we are sad and we are outraged." Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák issued an official statement saying "We also express our solidarity and full support of France in fighting terrorism." Robert Fico, the Prime Minister, pointed out risks associated with immigration saying "Hopefully, some people will open their eyes now". He said that the attacks in Paris proved him right about the links between Middle East migrants and security. Since he considered Muslims as a potential threat after the attacks in Paris, Fico said they were being closely monitored in Slovakia, the Reuters news agency reported.
: President Borut Pahor made a joint statement with President Poroshenko of Ukraine, in Lviv, saying that "In these difficult moments Ukraine and Slovenia mourn together with the French nation for terrible losses and express solidarity with victims and their families."
: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent to the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condolences from Spain and he was interested about the critical situation in France. Rajoy also offered collaboration with Spanish National Police Force and the Spanish National Intelligence Agency. Spanish Prime Minister gathered with the Spanish counter-terrorist pact and decided to not increase the counter-terrorist alert which was at 4/5 nivel. The Spanish king, Felipe VI and the Spanish Royal House also offered condolences to the French people.
: King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden "I feel a tremendous sorrow and my thoughts go out to all those affected, especially to the victims and their loved ones. These attacks are an attack on our shared societies and its values, and the way we wish to live. I am among those who feel alarm and dismay. It is vitally important that we stand together today against these unfathomable acts of terrorisms." Vice prime minister Åsa Romson tweeted "The very serious attacks in Paris just now may obstruct the Climate Change Conference in December", during the attacks, which caused a lot of criticism in Sweden due to 'wrong priorities'.
: President Simonetta Sommaruga said "these attacks are against all our deepest societal and human values. Our hearts are with those close to the victims and those hurt" and "we stand together with the French government and will work with them to analyse the security situation in our country."
: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, "Turkey knows very well the meaning of terror and its results. We are sharing the pain of both President Hollande and the French people, and I extend my condolences to our French friends." Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu expressed his condolences and added "These attacks are not only aimed at the French people, but also democracy, freedom and universal values; terror has no religion, nation nor any value it represents."
: President Petro Poroshenko said he was "shocked" and feels "solidarity with people of France," noticing that "terrorism is our common enemy." Later he laid flowers near the French embassy in Kyiv, as well as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and other cabinet members. In Lviv President made a joint Statement with President of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor, "calling on the G20 leaders to agree upon inclusive set of measures to address the increasing security challenge" and noticing that "Ukraine and Slovenia are ready to join the global anti-terrorist response."
: Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "shocked" by the "horrifying and sickening" attack, and pledged that the UK and France would stand together "in sorrow, but unbowed." while the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn cancelled a planned speech in response to the attacks, which he described as "heinous and immoral" and said "We stand in solidarity with the French." Corbyn also laid flowers at the French Embassy and wrote to Hollande. The Union Flag was flown at half-mast alongside French tricolour also flying at half-mast above 10 Downing Street and many other government buildings. British Security Services will recruit 1,900 additional intelligence and security staff to counter violent extremism following the attacks.
: Premier Michael Dunkley said that the people of Bermuda condemned "this heinous terrorist attack in Paris," which he described as a "tragic and shocking incident." He contacted the French consulate on the island to offer any assistance possible.
: The First and deputy First Ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness issued a joint statement which said "Our thoughts, prayers and sympathies are with the French people and we stand shoulder to shoulder with President Hollande and France following these savage, barbaric and cowardly terrorist attacks in Paris."
: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon visited the French consulate in Edinburgh to sign a book of condolence and wrote that "The thoughts and prayers of Scotland are with the people of France tonight."
: First Minister Carwyn Jones described the events as "awful" and postponed a reception for the Welsh football team as a "mark of respect."
: Chief Minister Fabian Picardo expressed his condolences. The Moorish Castle was lit up in the colours of the French Flag, with all flags at half mast.
: Chief Minister Jonathan Le Tocq said "I learned with dismay the heinous attack in Paris. Our thoughts are heading to the bereaved families & all our French friends".
: Chief Minister Ian Gorst expressed his condolences in a public letter to President Hollande.
: Pope Francis condemned the attacks, saying "I want to strongly reaffirm that the path of violence and hatred doesn't solve the problems of humanity! To use the name of God to justify this path is a blasphemy!" Vatican press director Father Federico Lombardi issued an official statement from the Vatican, stating "We are shocked by this new manifestation of maddening, terrorist violence and hatred which we condemn in the most radical way together with the Pope and all those who love peace."
Oceania
: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed solidarity with France saying "In France and Australia, all around the world, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of France and with all free peoples in the battle against terrorism." In light of the attacks Turnbull also added that Australian authorities do not believe that there are any impending terrorist attacks on Australian soil to justify raising of the terror threat alert level in the country. Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove also condemned the attacks, stating that "today we're all to some degree French".
: Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama released a statement saying "Every Fijian shares my horror at the terrorist attacks in Paris. On behalf of the Fijian Government and Fijian people, I want to express both our deepest condolences and our unwavering solidarity with the people of France" and described the nature of the attacks on innocent people as "especially horrifying".
: Prime Minister John Key expressed his condolences to the victims "our hearts go out to those involved and our thoughts with them and their families" and pledged that New Zealand would stand with France in the fight against terrorism.
: Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi sent a letter to French President François Hollande in which he condemned the "evil and vile" attacks, which he said had "also targeted common humanity and universal values of freedom".
Partially recognized states
: President Atifete Jahjaga declared 15 November a day of mourning in Kosovo in honour of the victims with flags on all state buildings both in Kosovo and abroad flown at half mast. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa stated "In these difficult moments, we share the pain of the people and institutions of France, but also the democratic world, which should be mobilised vigorously to defeat the evil that is threatening humanity". Hashim Thaçi the Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a telegram to his counterparts saying that the institutions and the people of Kosovo stands with the French people in a hard time for France and the families of victims.
: President Mustafa Akıncı has condemned the attacks in a statement that he said "a complete atrocity took place in Paris. I share the deep sadness for the suffering of the French people. We always have to struggle in solidarity against crimes against humanity."
: President Ma Ying-jeou and the two major candidates in the upcoming presidential election of the Republic of China condemned the attacks. "We stand side by side with the French people in condemning the violence and hoping that order will be restored as soon as possible," said Ma.
World landmarks illuminated in the colours of the French flag
Following the attacks, multiple landmarks around the world were lit in the colours of the French flag.
Popular reactions
Vigils and memorials
French foreign exchange students gathered in Union Square in New York City where they lit candles and sang "La Marseillaise". Vigils took place in Sydney, Montreal, London, New York City, Glasgow, and Manila among others.
On 14 November, German pianist Davide Martello towed his grand piano by bike to the Bataclan theatre, where a reported 80 people had died in the attack. There, he played John Lennon's "Imagine" to a crowd gathered outside in tribute to the victims. Martello is known for travelling around conflict zones to play the piano and previously performed at the sites of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
At the 800th annual Lord Mayor's Show in London, a two-minute silence was held with flags at half-mast while fireworks were cancelled. At the City Hall of Athens, the flags of France, Greece, and the European Union were at half-mast to mourn for the victims. The Christmas decorations of Athens have been left unlit.
The European Union declared 13 November a European Day of Mourning and member states held a minute's silence on 16 November at 12 p.m. Central European Time to show a sign of respect and solidarity to those who lost their lives in the attacks. In the UK, all public places and many government offices and officials were to have both UK and French flags flown at half mast as a sign of respect.
On 17 November, England played France at Wembley Stadium, London with fans of both teams uniting to sing the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", before a minute's silence. On the first weekend of English Premier League matches since the attack, "La Marseillaise" was played before every game. French football club Paris Saint-Germain was granted permission to wear the message 'Je suis Paris' on the team's jersey for two matches.
A number of residents of the Syrian city of Damascus, caught in fierce fighting between the Syrian government, ISIS and Western air strikes wrote an open letter stating, "We extend our hands to all the people that love peace and freedom, most of all the French people."
Social media
In the hours after the attack, some Parisians used social media, in particular the Twitter hashtag #PorteOuverte (French for "#OpenDoor"), to offer overnight shelter to strangers stranded by the attacks. The hashtag trended worldwide. A modified version of the International Peace Symbol by London-based French graphic designer Jean Jullien, in which the centre fork was modified to resemble the Eiffel Tower, was also widely spread. The symbol was widely shared with the hashtags #PeaceForParis, #PrayForParis, #PrayForFrance and #JeSuisParis. Facebook reintroduced its safety check-in system so users in Paris could notify friends and family that they were safe. Facebook also encouraged users to temporarily overlay a transparent image of the French flag to "support France and the people of Paris".
In the wake of the attack, phrases such as "Je Suis Paris" and "We are all Parisians" appeared on news broadcasts and social media websites worldwide to show solidarity with the victims. This was similar to the reactions after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting with the phrase "Je Suis Charlie" and reflects the historic phrases ich bin ein Berliner in the 1961 Berlin crisis and the phrase "Tonight, we are all Americans" spoken on air by France 2 reporter Nicole Bacharan after the September 11 attacks. The French embassies and institutions used the hashtag #NousSommesUnis (French We are united).
The slogan #PrayforParis has been object to critical discussion due to its religious and imperative character. The Dalai Lama said "Humans created this problem and humans must solve it". The French Artist Joann Sfar suggested to use the hashtag #ParisIsAboutLife instead.
Some ISIL supporters used the hashtag #باريس_تشتعل (Paris burns, Paris is burning or Paris is on fire), the same hashtag that appeared in the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdos office and a Paris grocery store. In response, social media users urged saturation with #Parisburns, re-purposing the hashtag as support for the victims and Paris. Muslims also rebuked the attacks by using the hashtag #NotInMyName and #MuslimsAreNotTerrorist, the former of which had been utilized by Muslims in the past to condemn ISIS actions.
Following the attack, a Facebook campaign was created with the goal of getting Eagles of Death Metal's cover of the Duran Duran song "Save a Prayer" to number one on the UK Singles Chart. The song ultimately peaked at number 53 for the chart dated the week after the attack.
Google attached a black ribbon to the bottom of their page "in memory of the victims of the Paris attacks". Skype and other websites have allowed users to make free calls to France to allow users to connect and communicate with loved ones or relatives/friends to ensure their safety.
High-profile political cartoonist Hadi Heidari was arrested in Iran after he depicted the Eiffel Tower in tearful solidarity with the people of Paris – an image that had been widely shared on social media and reproduced by western news organizations.
Other reactions
NBC's Saturday Night Live opted not to open the show with a comedic cold open as it usually does; instead, cast member Cecily Strong addressed the City of Paris in English on behalf of New York City, which was followed by a French translation of her comments. After saying the show's opening line, SNL returned to its usual format. The show has only removed its usual cold open after five other occasions—the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 United States presidential election, the Las Vegas shooting in 2017, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In the days following the attacks, the French news and entertainment show Le Petit Journal sent its reporters on to the streets of Paris to document the public's reactions. Their reporter Martin Weill recorded an interview with a six-year-old boy named Brandon, who, when asked if he understood why the attackers had done what they had done, responded: "Yes, because they're really, really mean. Bad guys are not very nice. And we have to be really careful because we have to change houses." Videos of the interview went viral in both the French- and English-speaking world.
The hacktivist group Anonymous declared "war" on ISIL in its largest operation to date, and by the second day claimed to have taken down 3,824 pro-ISIL Twitter accounts and doxxed multiple recruiters.
The National Football League has implemented metal detectors and increased security inside and outside its stadiums for the games that played during week 10 of the 2015 season as spectators were discouraged from bringing non-plastic clear bags into the venues. All teams that played held a moment of silence to honor the victims of the attacks.
The WWE has changed its security guidelines and held a moment of Silence prior to the 16 November episode of Monday Night Raw displaying the French Flag and the Eiffel Tower in the form of Peace for Paris.
Negative reactions
At a football match against Greece, some Turkish supporters booed during a minute of silence in commemoration of the attacks, and a section reportedly shouted "Allahu akhbar," an incident echoing what had previously happened during a minute of silence for the victims of the October Ankara bombings, in which minority Alevis and Kurds made up the majority of the Ankara bombing victims. During a moment of silence in a match between Moldova and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani soccer fans booed.
During a Euro 2016 qualifier match between Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Dublin, a minutes silence was held prior to kick off. Bosnian fans were reported to be chanting loudly during that period.
Responses from Muslim groups
Various Muslim religious leaders and organisations from around the world condemned the attacks. Some took to social media to say that the attacks went against the teachings of Islam. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt have been among the Arab states leading condemnations of the simultaneous attacks in Paris, in addition to Morocco, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Al-Azhar university in Cairo, the Muslim world's top theological institution of learning and oldest university, strongly condemned the attack, saying, "The time has come for the world to unite to confront this monster... Such acts are contrary to all religious, humanitarian and civilized principles." Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, issued a press release from London condemning the attack by expressing his heartfelt sympathies and condolences to the French nation, and said that these attacks are against the teachings of the Quran. Les Fédérations Musulmanes, a French Muslim federation, strongly condemned the attacks in Paris denouncing it as "abject barbarism." The Luxembourg Shoura, a federation of Muslim leaders in Luxembourg condemned the attacks in a statement released on the Tuesday following the attacks saying "We are outraged and express loud and clear our deep disgust and our unequivocal condemnation of these criminal acts committed against civilians done at random."
The Muslim Council of Britain described the attacks as "horrific and abhorrent" and participated in one of the Trafalgar Square vigils. The Council added that "There is nothing Islamic about such people and their actions are evil, and outside the boundaries set by our faith ...there is no justification for such carnage whatsoever." The Association of British Muslims said that "The Muslim faith condemns such acts of violence" and "The attacks in Paris were not aimed just at France or Paris, they are attacks against the values and freedoms we cherish and live by in Europe, they were aimed at all of us."
The Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front, praised the attacks, saying that even though they view ISIL as "dogs of hellfire", they applaud when "infidels" get attacked by ISIL.
In a press release by the Australian National Imams Council, the Grand Mufti of Australia Ibrahim Abu Mohamed made some controversial remarks that: "These recent incidents highlight the fact that current strategies to deal with the threat of terrorism are not working. It is therefore imperative that all causative factors such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed". He received criticism from politicians and the press for not directly condemning the Paris attacks. Which led to a further statement: "We wish to emphasise it is incorrect to imply that the reference to causative factors provides justification for these acts of terrorism." and "Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohamed have consistently and unequivocally condemned all forms of terrorist violence."
Political reactions
The attacks called attention to existing controversy over mass surveillance and calls for prohibition of strong encryption or otherwise hard-to-monitor communications. Shortly after the reports it was reported that a PlayStation 4 unit had been found in the home of one of the suspects, which correlated with Belgian home affairs minister Jan Jambon's statement three days before the attack that "The most difficult communication between these terrorists is via PlayStation 4". Though not encrypted, PlayStation chats allow millions of customers to speak with people they would not otherwise know, complicating the traffic analysis that can expose patterns even in encrypted communications when the participants in a conversation are identified. Comments after the attack by American CIA Director John Brennan blamed disclosures by Edward Snowden and availability of encryption for aiding terrorist networks, though this idea was opposed in a New York Times editorial as "a new and disgraceful low".
At the second political debate for Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency, when Bernie Sanders was asked whether after the attacks he still believed that the greatest threat to national security was climate change, he explained that climate change was related to rising terrorism, because it caused competition over resources.
See also
Anti-terrorism legislation
Je suis Charlie
ISIL-related terror attacks in France
Law on the fight against terrorism
List of Islamist terrorist attacks
Terrorism in France
War on Terror
Notes and references
2015 in international relations
Foreign relations of France
Internet culture
Paris attacks
Paris attacks
November 2015 Paris attacks |
48569243 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux.Encoder | Linux.Encoder | Linux.Encoder (also known as ELF/Filecoder.A and Trojan.Linux.Ransom.A) is considered to be the first ransomware Trojan targeting computers running Linux. There are additional variants of this Trojan that target other Unix and Unix-like systems. Discovered on November 5, 2015, by Dr. Web, this malware affected at least tens of Linux users.
Linux.Encoder.1 is remotely executed on the victim's computer by using a flaw in Magento, a popular Content management system app. When activated, the malware encrypts certain types of files stored on mounted local and network drives using AES and RSA Public-key cryptography, with the private key stored only on the malware's control servers. The malware then store a file called "readme_to_decrypt.txt" in every directory, containing a message, which offers to decrypt the data if a payment (through Bitcoin) is made. Compared to other ransomware such as CryptoLocker, the malware does not state a deadline to pay and the ransom does not increase over time.
Discovery
On November 5, 2015, Dr. Web, a Russian anti-malware company added to its virus database Linux.Encoder.1. The company then published the malware description the day after. This ransomware is written in C using the PolarSSL library.
Operation
Propagation
According to Bitdefender Labs, the most common infection vector is through a flaw in Magento, a shopping cart software. CheckPoint, reported this vulnerability in April 2015. After this report, Magento issued a fix. However, a lot of small e-commerce sites did not apply this critical update. Linux host might also be attacked using other exploits.
File encryption
Encrypted files
When run as root, the program loads two files into memory containing the attackers' demands:
./readme.crypto
./index.crypto
After this the ransomware receives the public RSA key. The malware will then start as a daemon and delete all its original files. The trojan will encrypt files with the extensions : ".php", ".html", ".tar", ".gz", ".sql", ".js", ".css", ".txt" ".pdf", ".tgz", ".war", ".jar", ".java", ".class", ".ruby", ".rar" ".zip", ".db", ".7z", ".doc", ".pdf", ".xls", ".properties", ".xml" ".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".gif", ".mov", ".avi", ".wmv", ".mp3" ".mp4", ".wma", ".aac", ".wav", ".pem", ".pub", ".docx", ".apk" ".exe", ".dll", ".tpl", ".psd", ".asp", ".phtml", ".aspx", ".csv".
The malicious program encrypts files with the aforementioned extensions in the following directories:
/home
/root
/var/lib/mysql
/var/www
/etc/nginx
/etc/apache2
/var/log
After this, the malware will encrypt all the files from directories with a name starting by:
public_html
www
webapp
backup
.git
.svn
The program will not encrypt files in the following directories
/
/root/
.ssh
/usr/bin
/bin
/etc/ssh
The program will then generate a file called "readme_for_decryption.txt" in every folder. This file contains the Bitcoin address generated specifically for the ransom and the website to download the decrypting tool hosted on a .onion website.
Encryption method
Like other ransomware, Linux.Encoder.1 use mixed-encryption algorithms to encrypt data. It starts by generating an AES key on the victim's device and encrypts all of the previous files using AES-CBC-128. Then the RSA-encrypted AES key is prepended to the beginning of every encrypted file, with the original file permissions and the IV used by the AES algorithm. All the encrypted files have ".encrypted" added at the end of their file name.
The program use the libc rand() function with the timestamp at the moment of encryption as seed to generate the IV and the keys.
Decryption
When the payment to the cybercriminal is made, the victim can download a PHP script to their computer. This script will use the RSA private key to recover the symmetric AES key and decrypt all the files with the ".encrypted" extension. Along with the file decryption, the decryption tool will also delete every "readme_for_decryption.txt" file on the hard drive.
Recovering files
Because of the use of the timestamp as a seed for creating the keys and the IV for encryption, decryption of files encrypted by the ransomware is trivial given that the original timestamp information is kept intact. Researchers at Bitdefender Labs have found and exploited this weakness to recover the files without having to pay the criminals.
On other Unix systems
Linux.Encoder.1 has been recompiled on Mac, called KeRanger.
There is a version that infects FreeBSD.
References
Trojan horses
Linux malware
Ransomware |
48571455 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-centric%20security | Data-centric security | Data-centric security is an approach to security that emphasizes the dependability of the data itself rather than the security of networks, servers, or applications. Data-centric security is evolving rapidly as enterprises increasingly rely on digital information to run their business and big data projects become mainstream.
Data-centric security also allows organizations to overcome the disconnect between IT security technology and the objectives of business strategy by relating security services directly to the data they implicitly protect; a relationship that is often obscured by the presentation of security as an end in itself.
Key concepts
Common processes in a data-centric security model include:
Discover: the ability to know what data is stored where including sensitive information.
Manage: the ability to define access policies that will determine if certain data is accessible, editable, or blocked from specific users, or locations.
Protect: the ability to defend against data loss or unauthorized use of data and prevent sensitive data from being sent to unauthorized users or locations.
Monitor: the constant monitoring of data usage to identify meaningful deviations from normal behavior that would point to possible malicious intent.
From a technical point of view, information (data)-centric security relies on the implementation of the following:
Information (data) that is self-describing and defending.
Policies and controls that account for business context.
Information that remains protected as it moves in and out of applications and storage systems, and changing business context.
Policies that work consistently through the different data management technologies and defensive layers implemented.
Technology
Data access controls and policies
Data access control is the selective restriction of access to data. Accessing may mean viewing, editing, or using. Defining proper access controls requires to map out the information, where it resides, how important it is, who it is important to, how sensitive the data is and then designing appropriate controls.
Encryption
Encryption is a proven data-centric technique to address the risk of data theft in smartphones, laptops, desktops and even servers, including the cloud. One limitation is that encryption is not always effective once a network intrusion has occurred and cybercriminals operate with stolen valid user credentials.
Data masking
Data Masking is the process of hiding specific data within a database table or cell to ensure that data security is maintained and that sensitive information is not exposed to unauthorized personnel. This may include masking the data from users, developers, third-party and outsourcing vendors, etc.
Data masking can be achieved multiple ways: by duplicating data to eliminate the subset of the data that needs to be hidden, or by obscuring the data dynamically as users perform requests.
Auditing
Monitoring all activity at the data layer is a key component of a data-centric security strategy. It provides visibility into the types of actions that users and tools have requested and been authorized to on specific data elements. Continuous monitoring at the data layer combined with precise access control can contribute significantly to the real-time detection of data breaches, limits the damages inflicted by a breach and can even stop the intrusion if proper controls are in place. A 2016 survey
shows that most organizations still do not assess database activity continuously and lack the capability to identify database breaches in a timely fashion.
Privacy-enhancing technologies
A privacy-enhancing technology (PET) is a method of protecting data. PETs allow online users to protect the privacy of their personally identifiable information (PII) provided to and handled by services or applications. PETs use techniques to minimize possession of personal data without losing the functionality of an information system.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is an evolving paradigm with tremendous momentum, but its unique aspects exacerbate security and privacy challenges. Heterogeneity and diversity of cloud services and environments demand fine-grained access control policies and services that should be flexible enough to capture dynamic, context, or attribute-based access requirements and data protection.
Data-centric security in the public cloud environments
In recent decades many organizations rely on managing database services in public clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Oracle Cloud, Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure to organize their data.
Such approaches have their own limitations on what users can do with managing the security of their sensitive data. For instance, hardware security appliances or agents running on the database servers are no longer an option. This requires innovative ways to secure data and databases such as using a reverse proxy sitting in between clients / applications and database servers. The requirements, such as supporting a load balancing, high availability and fail-over in data-centric security bring additional challenges that database security vendors must meet.
See also
Data masking
Data security
Defense in depth (computing)
Information security
Information security policies
References
Computer security
Big data |
48632278 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh%20Hawley | Josh Hawley | Joshua David Hawley (born December 31, 1979) is an American politician, lawyer, and former professor who has served as the junior United States senator from Missouri since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Hawley served as the 42nd attorney general of Missouri from 2017 to 2019, before defeating two-term incumbent Democratic senator Claire McCaskill in the 2018 election.
Born in Springdale, Arkansas, to a banker and a teacher, Hawley graduated from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006. He was a law clerk to Tenth Circuit Judge Michael W. McConnell and Chief Justice John Roberts and then worked as a lawyer, first in private practice, from 2008 to 2011, and then for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, from 2011 to 2015. Before becoming Missouri attorney general, he was also a post graduate intern at St Paul's School in London, an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, and a faculty member of the conservative Blackstone Legal Fellowship.
As Missouri attorney general, Hawley initiated several high-profile lawsuits and investigations, including a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, an investigation into Missouri governor Eric Greitens, and a lawsuit and investigation into companies associated with the opioid epidemic. In the Senate, Hawley became widely known for his criticism of Big Tech, as well as for his criticism of the Chinese government and his support for an independent Hong Kong.
In December 2020, Hawley provoked a political backlash when he became the first senator to announce plans to object to the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 United States presidential election. Hawley led Senate efforts to overturn the Electoral College vote count and rallied supporters of the Stop the Steal conspiracy theory that motivated an attack on the U.S. Capitol, with figures across the political spectrum calling on him to resign or be expelled from the Senate. In late January 2021, Hawley denied trying to overturn the election results, and ultimately there were no repercussions.
Early life and education
Joshua David Hawley was born on December 31, 1979, in Springdale, Arkansas, to banker Ronald Hawley and teacher Virginia Hawley. In 1981, the Hawleys moved to Lexington, Missouri, after Ronald joined a division of Boatmen's Bancshares there.
Hawley attended Lexington Middle School and then Rockhurst High School, a private Jesuit boys' prep school in Kansas City, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1998 as a valedictorian. According to his middle school principal, Barbara Weibling, several of Hawley's teachers thought "he was probably going to be president one day." While in high school, Hawley regularly wrote columns for his hometown newspaper The Lexington News, writing about such topics as the American militia movement following the Oklahoma City bombing, media coverage of Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman, and affirmative action, which he opposed. He then studied history at Stanford University, where his mother was an alumna. Hawley graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa membership. Hawley studied under professor David M. Kennedy, who later contributed the foreword to a book Hawley wrote, Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness. Kennedy said Hawley stood out in a school "which is overstuffed with overachieving and very talented young people," and has described Hawley as "arguably the most gifted student I taught in 50 years."
After spending ten months in London as a post graduate intern at St Paul's School from 2002 to 2003, Hawley returned to the U.S. to attend Yale Law School, graduating in 2006 with a Juris Doctor degree. The Kansas City Star reported that Hawley's classmates saw him as "politically ambitious and a deeply religious conservative." While at Yale, Hawley was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and served as president of the school's Federalist Society chapter.
Early career
Hawley spent two years as a law clerk after law school, clerking first for Judge Michael W. McConnell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2006 to 2007, then for Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2007 to 2008. While at the Supreme Court, Hawley met his future wife, Erin Morrow, a fellow Yale Law graduate who was also clerking for Roberts.
After his clerkships, Hawley worked in private practice as an appellate litigator at the law firm Hogan & Hartson from 2008 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, he worked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty at its Washington, D.C., offices before moving to Missouri. At Becket, he wrote briefs and gave legal advice in the Supreme Court cases Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, decided in 2012, and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, decided in 2014. In 2011, Hawley returned to Missouri and became an associate professor at the University of Missouri Law School, where he taught constitutional law, constitutional theory, legislation, and torts.
In June 2013, Hawley served as a faculty member of the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, which is funded by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization that has been designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Attorney General of Missouri (2017–2019)
2016 election
In 2016, Hawley ran for Attorney General of Missouri. Of the $9.2 million raised for the campaign, $4.4 million was provided by David Humphreys, CEO of Joplin-based Tamko Building Products. On August 2, Hawley defeated Kurt Schaefer in the Republican primary with 64 percent of the vote. He defeated Democrat Teresa Hensley in the general election on November 8 with 58.5 percent of the vote. During the campaign, Hawley criticized "career politicians" who were "climbing the ladder" from one position to another, which later became a point of bipartisan criticism of him when he ran for the U.S. Senate two years later.
Death of Tory Sanders
On May 5, 2017, Tory Sanders, a black motorist who had taken a wrong turn in Tennessee ran out of gas in rural Mississippi County, Missouri. He had gotten lost and was confused and asked a gas station attendant to call the police for assistance. Deputies responded and put him in the county jail. His mental condition had deteriorated further and he resisted when jail staff, under the command of Sheriff Cory Hutcheson, tried to release him as they had no grounds on which to hold him. Hutcheson, who himself faced and later was convicted of a variety of federal and state charges, led a team of police and jailers who repeatedly pepper-sprayed and tasered Sanders throughout the day. Hutcheson eventually led a team of cops and jailers into the cell and swarmed Sanders, who went into cardiac arrest and died. The cause of death was judged to be "excited delirium", a condition frequently cited in custody-related deaths but not recognized by major psychiatric authorities.
Hawley determined that those who had assaulted Sanders had not intended his death, and decided not to file murder charges. When the case was reviewed by Hawley's successor, Eric Schmitt, insufficient evidence caused him to reject first or second-degree murder charges, but the statute of limitations had expired for any lesser offenses, so no one could be held criminally accountable for Sanders's death. Hawley's handling of the case led to criticism from black lawmakers and the NAACP's Missouri chapter. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, there was renewed interest in the case, with activists hoping that Schmitt would file charges. In February 2021, he chose not to do so.
Opioid manufacturer lawsuit and investigation
In June 2017, Hawley announced that Missouri had filed suit in state court against three major drug companies, Endo Health Solutions, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Purdue Pharma, for allegedly hiding the danger of prescription painkillers and contributing to the opioid epidemic. The state argued that the companies violated Missouri consumer protection and Medicaid laws. The damages sought were among the largest in state history, on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In August 2017, Hawley announced that he had opened an investigation into seven opioid distributors (Allergan, Depomed, Insys, Mallinckrodt, Mylan, Pfizer, and Teva Pharmaceuticals). In October 2017, Hawley expanded his investigation into three additional pharmaceutical companies (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corporation), the three largest U.S. opioid distributors.
Rape kit audit
On October 29, 2017, the Columbia Missourian published an exposé describing a large backlog of untested rape kits in Missouri and the long-ignored efforts of rape survivors and law enforcement agencies to have the state address the backlog. On November 29, Hawley announced a statewide audit of the number of untested rape kits. The results were made public in May 2018; there were 5,000 such kits. In August 2018, One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit connected to Republican campaign strategist Karl Rove, ran commercials giving Hawley credit for identifying the problem, a claim The St. Louis Post-Dispatch labeled misleading. In September 2020, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced that of the 16 rape kit tests that were consequently uploaded to the national DNA database, 11 revealed the names of known criminals, and were referred for possible prosecution.
Investigations into tech companies
In November 2017, Hawley opened an investigation into whether Google's business practices violated state consumer protection and anti-trust laws. The investigation was focused on what data Google collects from users of its services, how it uses content providers' content, and whether its search engine results are biased.
In April 2018, after the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Hawley announced that his office had issued a subpoena to Facebook related to how the company shares its users' data. The investigation sought to find whether Facebook properly handles its users' sensitive data or collects more data than it publicly admits.
Greitens scandals
In December 2017, Missouri's Republican Governor Eric Greitens and senior members of his staff were accused by government transparency advocates of subverting Missouri's open records laws after The Kansas City Star reported that they used Confide, a messaging app that erases texts after they have been read, on their personal phones. Hawley initially declined to prosecute, citing a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that the attorney general cannot simultaneously represent a state officer and take legal action against that officer, but on December 20, 2017, he announced his office would investigate, saying that his clients are "first and foremost the citizens of the state". Hawley said text messages between government employees, whether made on private or government-issued phones, should be treated the same as emails: a determination must be made as to whether the text is a record, and if so, whether it is subject to disclosure. Hawley's investigation found that no laws had been broken. In March 2018, six former Missouri attorneys released a letter describing the investigation as "half-hearted"; Hawley's spokesperson called the letter a partisan attack.
When allegations emerged in January 2018 that Greitens had blackmailed a woman with whom he was having an affair, Hawley's office said it did not have jurisdiction to look into the matter; St. Louis circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner opened an investigation into the allegations. In April, after a special investigative committee of the Missouri House of Representatives released a report on the allegations, Hawley called on Greitens to resign immediately. The next week, Gardner filed a second felony charge against Greitens, alleging that his campaign had taken donor and email lists from The Mission Continues, a veterans' charity Greitens founded in 2007, and used the information to raise funds for his 2016 campaign for governor.
Hawley announced an investigation based on the new felony charges. On April 30, he announced that his office had launched an investigation into possible violations of the state's Sunshine laws following allegations that a state employee had managed a social media account on Greitens's behalf. The same month, Greitens asked a judge to issue a restraining order blocking Hawley from investigating him.
On May 29, 2018, Greitens announced that he would resign effective June 1, 2018; Hawley issued a statement approving of the decision.
Affordable Care Act lawsuit
In February 2018, Hawley joined 20 other Republican-led states in a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional. Though some argued the lawsuit would eliminate insurance protections for people with preexisting conditions, Hawley said he supported protections for preexisting conditions. In September 2018, amid criticism from Hawley's U.S. Senate opponent Claire McCaskill about the lawsuit's impact on preexisting conditions, Hawley's office said that he supported protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. Hawley later published an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader explaining that he supported protecting those with preexisting conditions by creating a taxpayer subsidy to reimburse insurance companies for covering these high-cost patients. In December 2018, Judge Reed O'Connor ruled the entirety of the ACA unconstitutional, but on appeal, the Fifth Circuit did not agree that the entire law should be voided.
Sentencing of Bobby Bostic
In March 2018, Hawley defended the 1995 sentencing of Bobby Bostic, a Missouri man who had committed robbery and other crimes at the age of 16, to 241 years in prison. Bostic and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had attempted to appeal his sentence to the Supreme Court, saying it violated the court's ruling in Graham v. Florida, which held that juveniles could not be sentenced to life imprisonment for charges lesser than homicide. In a Supreme Court filing, Hawley argued that Bostic's sentencing did not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that Graham v. Florida only applied to a sentence for one crime. The judge who sentenced Bostic said she had come to believe the sentence was too harsh, and asked to join an amicus brief filed by 26 former judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials. On April 24, the Supreme Court rejected Bostic's appeal.
Catholic clergy investigation
In August 2018, after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report detailing over 1,000 cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics, as well as protests by survivors of clergy sexual abuse in St. Louis, Hawley announced that he would begin an investigation into potential cases of abuse in Missouri. Missouri was one of several states to launch such investigations in the wake of the Pennsylvania report; the attorneys general of Illinois, Nebraska, and New Mexico began similar inquiries. Hawley promised that he would investigate any crimes, publish a report for the public, and refer potential cases to local law enforcement officials. Archbishop of St. Louis Robert James Carlson pledged cooperation with the inquiry.
The investigation, which was inherited by Hawley's successor, Eric Schmitt, charged 12 former priests with sexual abuse of minors in September 2019.
U.S. Senate
Elections
2018
In August 2017, Hawley formed an exploratory campaign committee for the U.S. Senate. In October 2017, he declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination in Missouri's 2018 U.S. Senate election for the seat held by Democrat Claire McCaskill. Before the official announcement, four former Republican U.S. Senators from Missouri (John Ashcroft, Kit Bond, John Danforth, and McCaskill's predecessor, Jim Talent) asked Hawley to run for the Senate seat.
The tightly contested Republican primary had 11 candidates hoping to unseat McCaskill. Hawley received substantial support from prominent Republicans, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, President Donald Trump, and the Senate Conservatives Fund. He won a large majority of the vote in the primary election.
Trump endorsed Hawley in November 2017. During the general election campaign, Obamacare was a key issue, with both candidates pledging to ensure protections for preexisting conditions. McCaskill criticized Hawley's participation in a lawsuit that could end insurance protections for people with preexisting conditions by overturning the Affordable Care Act. Hawley made McCaskill's upcoming vote on the confirmation of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State a campaign issue. His campaign spokesperson asked, "Will Senator McCaskill ignore her liberal donors and support Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State, or will she stick with Chuck Schumer and continue to obstruct the president?", adding, "It is deeply troubling how focused Senator McCaskill is on doing what's politically convenient instead of doing what's right."
Hawley met criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for initiating his Senate campaign less than a year after being sworn in as attorney general, as during his attorney general campaign, Hawley had put out advertisements criticizing "ladder-climbing politicians." Hawley dismissed this, saying that the Senate was not on his mind during the attorney general campaign.
During the campaign, Hawley released his and his wife's tax returns and called on McCaskill to release her and her husband's returns. McCaskill released her returns, which she files separately from her husband. When asked if he thought Trump should release his returns, Hawley did not say.
In the November 2018 general election, Hawley defeated McCaskill, 51 percent to 46 percent.
On December 6, 2018, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft launched an inquiry into whether Hawley misappropriated public funds for his Senate campaign. Hawley's office denied any wrongdoing. On February 28, 2019, Ashcroft closed the investigation because there was insufficient evidence that "an offense has been committed." A 2021 New York Post investigation of questionable campaign expenditures revealed that Hawley had apparently illegally spent such funds, for instance charging $80.04 at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville to "travel", on a lobbyist-funded junket to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. Almost a year later Hawley's office said he had reimbursed the campaign for the inappropriate expenditures.
Tenure
Hawley was sworn in as a U.S. Senator on January 3, 2019.
In June 2019, Hawley played a major role in preventing Trump nominee Michael S. Bogren from being appointed as a district judge for the Western District of Michigan. Hawley accused Bogren of "anti-religious animus" in a case he took as a lawyer, in which Bogren compared Catholic views on homosexuality to the Ku Klux Klan's views on interracial marriage.
During the Hong Kong protests in October 2019, Hawley and Senator Ted Cruz visited Hong Kong and spoke in favor of the protests. Hawley called the city a "police state". Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam said Hawley's assertion was "irresponsible and unfounded".
On November 18, 2019, Hawley announced the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act, which would make it illegal for American companies to store user data or encryption keys in China. Engadget noted the bill might cause "serious problems" for companies that are legally obligated to store data in China, such as Apple and TikTok, and "might force them to leave China altogether". It was not Hawley's first technology-related bill; he had also introduced proposals to ban loot boxes in gaming and to restrict social network features "deemed addictive", among others. Hawley focused on TikTok, saying the bill would cover Russia as well as China, and "any other country the State Department deems a security risk". He said the bill was "targeted at social media platforms and data-intensive businesses", and "would block such mergers by default without pre-approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States". The bill also prevents the collection of "more user data than is necessary to conduct business".
Hawley joined President Donald Trump in his calls for an increase of the initial $600 coronavirus relief checks provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to $2,000, which put him on the same side as "unlikely ally" Bernie Sanders. Alongside Sanders and Chuck Schumer, Hawley attempted to force a vote to increase the checks, but it was blocked by other Republican senators.
On February 8, 2021, after he voted against the nomination of Denis McDonough for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Hawley became the only senator to vote against all of President Joe Biden's cabinet nominees, with the exception of Cecilia Rouse, whom he voted to confirm as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Ten months into Biden's term, Hawley had voted to approve only 4 of 118 executive appointments that received a Senate vote, and none in the preceding 5 months. This record made him a standout among senators. Political scientist Wendy Schiller compared Hawley to "senators who have basically made it their career to stop the Senate in its tracks." She noted that Hawley differed from his predecessors in that his obstruction had no clear policy goal, but was more about punishing the Biden administration.
Role in the 2020 presidential election
After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Hawley announced his intention to object to the Senate's certification of the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021. He was the first senator to do so. Trump had refused to concede and made frequent baseless claims of fraud in the election. Hawley said that his attempt to reverse the election result was on behalf of those "concerned about election integrity." He made numerous statements suggesting that Trump could possibly remain in office. The New York Times wrote that Hawley was elevating false claims that President-elect Joe Biden stole the election. His maneuver prompted bipartisan condemnation of his action as undemocratic.
On December 30, 2020, Hawley said, "some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws", though multiple courts had rejected such claims. He repeated the false assertion about Pennsylvania in a February 2021 fundraising email, though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had unanimously rejected the argument and the United States Supreme Court had declined to consider an appeal.
On December 30, 2020, after Hawley tweeted he would join the effort to object to Biden's victory, Walmart's official Twitter account responded, "Go ahead. Get your 2 hour debate. #soreloser." Hawley responded, accusing Walmart of using "slave labor" and "driv[ing] mom and pop stores out of business". Walmart deleted the tweet, apologizing to Hawley and saying it was "mistakenly posted by a member of our social media team." The event led the hashtag #BoycottWalmart to trend on Twitter.
On January 4, 2021, Hawley tweeted that his Washington, D.C. home had been vandalized and his family had been threatened by "Antifa scumbags" in an act of "leftwing violence" due to his claims of fraud. He said he was in Missouri at the time. ShutDownDC, the group that staged the event, said it was a peaceful candlelight vigil and claimed they did not vandalize Hawley's house or knock on the door. A video of the event shared by the group showed that some protesters wrote on the sidewalk in chalk, chanted through a megaphone, and left a copy of the U.S. Constitution at Hawley's door. Vienna, Virginia police said the protesters were peaceful with "no issues, no arrests" necessary; police spokesman Juan Vazquez said the police "didn't think it was that big of a deal."
Storming of the U.S. Capitol and public reaction
On January 6, 2021, when Congress met to count the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election, they were interrupted by pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building, forcing members of Congress to evacuate. The events led to five deaths. Before the counting of the votes, to which Hawley had publicly announced he would object, he was photographed saluting the protestors with a raised fist outside the Capitol. The photograph immediately became a subject of controversy; The Kansas City Star called it "the image that will haunt Josh Hawley" and "one of the iconic images to emerge from the day the Capitol was breached by rioters" and Pulitzer Prize-winning St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger said "the staging was perfect" and recommended the photograph be known as Hawley: The Face of Sedition. Tom Coleman, a former U.S. representative from Missouri and a fellow Republican, said Hawley's "clenched fist in front of the Capitol will seal his fate." The photographer, Francis Chung, declined to weigh in on the photograph's political impact, saying it "is what it is" and "kind of speaks for itself."
That same day, The Kansas City Star's editorial board published an editorial arguing that Hawley "has blood on his hands" due to the event, which they called a "coup attempt", saying that "no one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible" than Hawley, "who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway". The next day, it published an editorial calling for Hawley to resign or be removed from office. Similarly, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri's other major newspaper, published an editorial on January 7 calling for Hawley to resign and Republican "silent enablers" to denounce Trumpism, writing that "Hawley's tardy, cover-his-ass condemnation of the violence ranks at the top of his substantial list of phony, smarmy and politically expedient declarations" and "Trumpism must die before it morphs into Hitlerism. Defenders like Hawley deserve to be cast into political purgatory for having promoted it". The newspaper's editor, Gilbert Bailon, explained the editorial board's decision in an interview with Boston-based radio station WBUR:
Political scientists Henry Farrell and Elizabeth N. Saunders called Hawley's ploy a "cynical theatrical gesture" with Hawley "pursuing short-term political gain at the risk of long-term chaos." John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and Hawley's political mentor, said that supporting Hawley was the "worst mistake I ever made in my life". Danforth said Hawley was directly responsible for the riot. David M. Kennedy, who served as Hawley's academic adviser at Stanford, said he "absolutely could not have predicted that the bright, idealistic, clear-thinking young student that I knew would follow this path" and was "more than a little bamboozled by it, certainly distressed by it," though he said he did not believe Hawley directly incited the mob. Prominent conservative columnist George Will wrote on the day of the riot that Hawley, Trump and Senator Ted Cruz "will each wear the scarlet S of a seditionist." Comedian Bill Maher called Hawley "a far-right JFK with a little dash of KKK." On January 9, NBC News reported that several Republican Party insiders anonymously condemned Hawley's actions, with one strategist saying of the fist salute that Hawley "looked phony and out of place and like a doofus" in a manner reminiscent of Michael Dukakis' tank photograph. Following the riot, Hawley's approval rating dropped six percent among all Missouri voters, and nine percent among Missouri Republicans.
In the wake of the riot, other Republican lawmakers tried to persuade Hawley to abandon his objections to Biden's win, but he voted in support of the objections to the electoral votes for Arizona and Pennsylvania, making baseless claims that Pennsylvania election officials violated state election laws. Both senators from Pennsylvania, including Republican Pat Toomey, rejected his objections, and the Senate rejected his objections by votes of 6–93 and 7–92, respectively. Some political commentators and Democratic lawmakers dubbed Hawley and other senators who sought to overturn the election the Sedition Caucus. Hawley has since faced bipartisan calls for his resignation, to which he has responded that he "will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections." Thousands of law school students and alumni, including at Hawley's alma mater Yale Law School, also called for Hawley and Cruz to be disbarred. On January 9, hundreds of protesters assembled in Downtown St. Louis in front of the Old Courthouse to demand Hawley's resignation.
Several political donors and companies associated with Hawley have cut off financial ties. David Humphreys, who with his mother and sister donated more than $6 million to Hawley's campaigns, called for him to be censured, having "revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold." On January 7, Simon & Schuster canceled its planned publication of Hawley's book The Tyranny of Big Tech, saying it "cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat"; the book was later picked up by Regnery Publishing, which frequently publishes books by conservative authors. On January 11, several companies, including Airbnb, American Express, AT&T, Best Buy, Dow Inc., and Mastercard, announced they would end fundraising for all Republicans who objected to Biden's victory, including Hawley; Hallmark Cards, based in Kansas City, said it had asked Hawley and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas to return all contributions. Conversely, the Senate Conservatives Fund, a conservative political action committee, began raising money for Hawley and aggressively supporting him following the riot, raising $700,000 and spending nearly $400,000 to send texts and emails in support of him. A group of former Claire McCaskill staffers created a political action committee aimed at unseating Hawley with the backronym JOSH PAC (Just Oust Seditious Hacks).
On January 21, seven Democratic senators filed a complaint against Hawley and Cruz to the Senate Ethics Committee, arguing that they "lent legitimacy to the mob's cause and made future violence more likely." Hawley called the complaint "a flagrant abuse of the Senate ethics process and a flagrant attempt to exact partisan revenge". In response, Hawley filed an ethics complaint of his own against the seven senators, alleging their complaint was unethical due to potential coordination with Democratic Party leadership and claiming that he was a victim of cancel culture.
After the storming of the Capitol, several people sent disparaging messages intended for Hawley to Representative Josh Harder, a California Democrat, as they had confused the two due to their names' similarity.
On May 28, 2021, Hawley voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the riot.
Committee assignments
For the 117th United States Congress, Hawley was named to four Senate committees. They are:
Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Airland
Subcommittee on Personnel
Subcommittee on SeaPower
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight
Governmental Operations and Border Management
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law (Ranking)
Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law
For the 116th United States Congress, Hawley was named to five Senate committees. They are:
Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Subcommittee on Seapower
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management
Subcommittee on Investigations (Permanent)
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism (Chair)
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Special Committee on Aging
Political positions
Hawley's political views have been described as nationalist and populist. He has been called a Trump loyalist.
Abortion
Hawley opposes abortion and has called for the appointment of "constitutionalist, pro-life judges" to the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. He has called Roe v. Wade "one of the most unjust decisions" in American judicial history. Missouri's Right to Life PAC endorsed Hawley for Senate. In July 2020, Hawley said he would not support any Supreme Court nominee who did not explicitly say that they would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. In October 2020, Hawley voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett, who had not said she would overturn Roe.
COVID-19 pandemic
During early negotiations on COVID-19 relief spending, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a partial rebate for around 70 million households with net incomes below about $50,000. His proposal faced "swift bipartisan opposition", including from Hawley, leading the restrictions to be dropped.
In April 2020, Hawley proposed that the U.S. government pay businesses to keep their workers on payroll for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and rehire any workers who had already been laid off. His proposal was similar to programs that various European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK, had implemented.
In December 2020, Hawley teamed up with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, to demand that any new stimulus deal include direct payments of at least $1,200 to American workers. As leverage, Hawley and Sanders used the upcoming Christmas recess and the deadline to pass a new continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown.
In June 2021, Hawley called for Anthony Fauci to resign from his role as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Environment
As Missouri attorney general, Hawley pushed for the deregulation of environmental protections put in place by President Barack Obama, and filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration in an attempt to expedite that process. Hawley acknowledged the irony in his maneuver, saying "it turns out the best way to help President Trump pursue his agenda of rolling back federal overreach is to sue him."
Foreign policy
Some of his former colleagues at St Paul's School claimed Hawley was "very hawkish" in his early 20s, supporting the Iraq War in its early stages and at one point making himself popcorn to eat while watching news coverage of the 2003 invasion. While a 25-year-old law student at Yale University, he wrote supportive blog posts of the war in 2005, as well as nation-building in Iraq. At the time, he supported a proactive democracy promotion foreign policy.
Since entering the U.S. Senate, Hawley reoriented himself as a staunch opponent of U.S. wars in the Middle East. Hawley has advocated for the U.S. to shift its focus away from the Middle East and toward China, which he sees as a grave threat to both democracy and national security. He has criticized the ideas of perpetual war and cosmopolitanism, for which he has blamed both the left and right wings, saying that "the quest to turn the world into a liberal order of democracies was always misguided," as it "depended on unsustainable American sacrifice and force of arms." In addition, Hawley has criticized the World Trade Organization, going so far as to call for it to be abolished, which he called "a start", and suggested that "along with it, the new model global economy" should be abolished as well.
During the Biden administration, Hawley systematically blocked quick confirmation of Biden's nominees for foreign policy and intelligence posts, forcing the Senate to take extra steps to confirm nominees and delaying the filling of posts.
Afghanistan
After the 2021 fall of Kabul and the 2021 Kabul airport attack, Hawley was one in "a wave of other Republicans" who called on President Joe Biden to resign.
China and Hong Kong
Hawley is an outspoken critic of China, which he has called "the greatest security threat to this country in this century." He has said the U.S.'s goal should not be "to remake China from within" but rather "to deny Beijing's ability to impose its will without, whether it be upon Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or our allies and partners, or upon us."
In October 2019, Hawley co-sponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Before the bill went to the House of Representatives, he visited Hong Kong to see the protests. He commented on Twitter that Beijing was trying to turn Hong Kong into a "police state". Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam called the comment "irresponsible". On November 19, 2019, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the act.
Hawley has worked to create legislation that would prohibit data transmission to a set of blacklisted nations, including China.
On July 10, 2020, Hawley sent a letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver criticizing the league for allowing players to put messages on their jerseys supporting the Black Lives Matter movement but not the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests or law enforcement officers. To promote the letter, Hawley's press office emailed it along with an announcement to several NBA reporters, including ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski. Wojnarowski responded "Fuck You." Hawley then tweeted a screenshot of Wojnarowski's response; Wojnarowski subsequently apologized to Hawley directly and posted an apology on Twitter. On July 12, ESPN temporarily suspended Wojnarowski over the incident. On September 23, 2020, Hawley once again criticized Silver for the NBA's business in China, tweeting, "Adam Silver just comes right out and says it: NBA's relationship with China involves 'trade offs' but overall is a 'net positive.' And by 'net positive,' he means billions of dollars for the NBA and by 'trade offs,' he means slave labor."
Israel
During his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley's press office sent out an email criticizing Claire McCaskill for supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, writing, "We should be standing with President Trump and Israel today. If you aren't, you are standing with the mullahs and John Kerry. Sen. McCaskill needs to make it clear that she stands with President Trump and Israel, and not the mullahs."
Hawley opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Antisemitism allegations
On July 16, 2019, at the National Conservatism Conference, organized by Israeli professor Yoram Hazony, Hawley said:
In his address, Hawley also denounced the "cosmopolitan agenda", the "cosmopolitan class", the "cosmopolitan consensus", the "cosmopolitan economy", and the "cosmopolitan elite". His statement was called antisemitic by several political commentators and Jewish leaders, as well as by the Anti-Defamation League, which called for Hawley to apologize. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency specifically compared Hawley's reference to "cosmopolitan elites" to the term "rootless cosmopolitan", an antisemitic smear popularized by Joseph Stalin and also used by Nazis. Andrew Silow-Carroll wrote for J. The Jewish News of Northern California that Hawley was using his connections with Jewish people as a way to dodge allegations of antisemitism. In response to the allegations, Hawley tweeted, "The liberal language police have lost their minds." Hazony and the Republican Jewish Coalition defended Hawley's remarks.
On October 21, 2019, Hawley attacked Jewish Washington Post reporter Greg Sargent as a "smug, rich liberal elitist"; Sargent responded in a column that he was in fact raised in poverty. Mehdi Hasan argued Hawley's attack was antisemitic, though Sargent did not make that claim.
Mexico
In July 2019, Hawley traveled to McAllen, Texas, along the Mexico–United States border, saying, "the nonstop flow of drugs and human trafficking coming into this country is a crisis, plain and simple. I want to learn more about the challenges our agents face, the problems these local communities are dealing with, and how we can figure out a path forward. We are facing a surge at the southern border like we have never seen before, and Congress needs to get off its backside and act."
On November 6, 2019, Hawley recommend that the U.S. impose sanctions and freeze assets of Mexican officials he did not feel were doing enough to address Mexican drug cartels.
On January 19, 2021, Hawley blocked the quick confirmation of Department of Homeland Security secretary nominee Alejandro Mayorkas after Mayorkas would not commit to spending $1.4 billion the U.S. government had appropriated for a border wall expansion.
Russia
Hawley has called the Mueller report a "hoax" and the Steele dossier "lies from a Russian spy".
In January 2019, Hawley was one of 11 Republican senators to vote for legislation aimed at blocking Trump's intended lifting of sanctions on three Russian companies.
In July 2020, Hawley said he did not believe news reports about a Russian bounty program funding the Taliban, but still said, "if they so much as think about putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers, there will be punishment."
In January 2022, Hawley called on Biden to drop support of plans for Ukraine to eventually join NATO, arguing that a binding commitment to defend Ukraine would undermine efforts to counter China.
Saudi Arabia
During a debate with Claire McCaskill in his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley and McCaskill agreed that if it was confirmed that the Saudi government was behind the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S. should respond severely.
After the 2019 Abqaiq–Khurais attack, Hawley said, "we shouldn't attack anybody on behalf of Saudi Arabia for Saudi Arabia's national interests" and instead should "preserve the security of the American people and the prosperity of our middle class."
Ukraine
In October 2019, Hawley called for an independent investigation into Joe Biden related to alleged dealings with Ukraine. He defended Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and criticized Trump's first impeachment, saying Trump's words were "certainly not a crime". During the impeachment trial, Hawley said if additional witnesses were called and new documents considered, he would attempt to force votes on subpoenas for Michael Atkinson, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Adam Schiff, the anonymous whistleblower and a reported acquaintance of the whistleblower.
Venezuela
On April 3, 2019, Hawley was part of a group of eight Republicans and seven Democrats to sponsor the Venezuelan Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development (VERDAD) Act, which was aimed at recognizing Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela rather than Nicolás Maduro. The bill would provide $200 million in aid for Venezuela, $200 million in aid for neighboring countries accepting Venezuelan refugees, revoke U.S. visas from sanctioned Venezuelan officials, and remove sanctions on officials not accused of human rights abuses who recognized Guaidó.
Gun policy
Hawley received a 93 percent rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for 2018 and an 86 percent rating for 2016. He does not support an assault weapons ban, but does support some gun-control measures, including strengthening background checks, banning bump stocks, and banning mentally ill people from having guns. During his Senate campaign, Hawley used National Media as a media consultant, the same firm the NRA employs.
Hate crimes
Hawley was one of six Republican senators to vote against advancing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would allow the U.S. Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID-19 and establish an online database. He was the sole senator to vote against the passage of an amended version of the act that would help investigate anti-Asian hate crimes, saying, "It's too broad. As a former prosecutor, my view is it's dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents."
Health care
Hawley has criticized the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). As attorney general of Missouri, he joined a lawsuit with 20 other states seeking to have it declared unconstitutional. Hawley said the act "was never constitutional", and spoke proudly of his involvement in the lawsuit. Hawley's 2018 Senate campaign said that he supported protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. He later published an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader saying that he supports protecting those with preexisting conditions by creating a taxpayer subsidy to reimburse insurance companies for covering these high cost patients.
Human trafficking
Hawley has said that human trafficking is the result of the American sexual revolution in the 1960s due to the social encouragement of premarital sex and the use of contraception. After being criticized for these statements, he said that Hollywood culture was a major cause of human trafficking. Hawley has said that the appropriate place for sex is "within marriage".
Immigration
Hawley supports funding the construction of a wall along the southern border to stop illegal immigration.
Hawley supported the Trump administration's family separation policy, saying "It is an entirely preventable tragedy. Don't cross the border illegally and this won't happen."
Labor
In his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley did not take a firm position on right-to-work legislation that was subject to a referendum by Missouri voters at the time. His spokesperson said of right-to-work, which would hamper labor unionizing, that "nobody should be forced to pay union dues."
Also in 2018, Hawley expressed opposition to a raise in the Missouri minimum wage from $7.85/hour to $8.60 in 2019 and $12 by 2023.
LGBT rights
In December 2015, Hawley supported exemptions for Missouri "businesses and religious groups from participating in same-sex ... marriage ceremonies".
In June 2020, after the Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Hawley criticized the decision, saying it "represents the end of the conservative legal movement".
Social media and Big Tech
Hawley is known for his criticism of Big Tech and social media companies and has often broken with other Republicans in his support for regulation of Internet companies. He cosponsored Do Not Track legislation with Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Mark Warner. His book The Tyranny of Big Tech was published in May 2021. According to Gilad Edelman of Wired, the book "raises valid concerns about the technology industry, and he proposes solutions worth taking seriously. But he embeds these ideas in a broader argument that is so wildly misleading as to call the entire project into question." Edelman writes that Hawley distorts the history of anti-trust in the United States, inaccurately portraying early-20th-century antitrust efforts and completely ignoring conservative opposition to antitrust enforcement since the 1970s.
In August 2019, Hawley introduced the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, which would ban features, such as infinite scrolling and auto-play, that he says encourage internet addiction. Per the bill, users would be unable to use a platform for more than 30 minutes per day unless they manually change the settings once a month.
In March 2020, Hawley and several other senators proposed the "No TikTok on Government Devices Act", which would prevent federal employees from downloading the app. Previously, Hawley had called the app "a Chinese-owned social media platform so popular among teens that Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly spooked".
Hawley has criticized Section 230, and has proposed legislation that would regard Internet access as a privilege rather than a right. His proposal faced bipartisan criticism as "poorly drafted, imprecise, and fatally vague."
Trade and tariffs
Hawley supported Trump's imposition of trade tariffs, saying he hoped the tariffs would be temporary, eventually resulting in lower tariffs on U.S. agriculture than before the trade battles. In September 2018, he fully supported Trump's trade actions, saying, "It's a trade war that China started. If we're in a war, I want to be winning it."
On May 5, 2020, Hawley wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the abolition of the World Trade Organization, arguing it did not serve American interests and "enabled the rise of China." Shortly afterward, he introduced a resolution to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO.
Donald Trump
Hawley has been characterized as a Trump loyalist. He voted to acquit Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial and accused Democrats of having abused the Constitution by starting the impeachment inquiry, declaring that it was "the first purely partisan impeachment in our history". The day after the Republican-held Senate acquitted Trump, Trump praised Hawley as having played a key role in his acquittal.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an editorial blasting Hawley and Senator Roy Blunt for not distancing themselves from the January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and their continued support for Trump. Both senators voted to acquit in Trump's second impeachment trial. During Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate, Hawley was in the Senate gallery rather than at his desk with the rest of the senators on the Senate floor. An NBC News reporter tweeted that Hawley could be seen "sitting up in the gallery with his feet up on the seat in front of him, reviewing paperwork". Later accused of ignoring the proceedings, Hawley called them "a total kangaroo trial".
U.S. Supreme Court nominations
Hawley's first commercial in the 2018 Senate campaign focused on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he supported. After Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, Hawley staunchly defended him and said that Democrats had staged an "ambush".
On October 27, 2020, Hawley voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.
Supreme Court shortlist
On September 9, 2020, Trump announced that Hawley, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton were on his shortlist for nominations to the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur. Hawley expressed his appreciation but declined the offer, saying, "Missourians elected me to fight for them in the Senate". After Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, Trump instead nominated Barrett on September 29.
Personal life
In 2010, Hawley married Erin Morrow, an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri. The couple have three children. Following complaints that, after becoming attorney general, he was not abiding by a statutory requirement that the attorney general must reside within the city limits of the state capital (Jefferson City), Hawley began renting an apartment there, while his family continued to live in Columbia, Missouri. The Hawleys own a house in Vienna, Virginia, which they bought in 2019 after Hawley was elected to the U.S. Senate, after selling their Columbia home. Hawley's voter registration has his sister's address in Ozark, Missouri so that he can be eligible to run again for Missouri's U.S. Senate seat.
Hawley was raised Methodist, but he and his family now attend an Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Hawley wrote in a 2012 essay: "Government serves Christ's kingdom rule; this is its purpose. And Christians' purpose in politics should be to advance the kingdom of God — to make it more real, more tangible, more present."
Electoral history
Missouri Attorney General
U.S. Senator
Publications
See also
List of Attorneys General of Missouri
List of United States senators from Missouri
Sedition Caucus
References
Works cited
External links
Official U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
Alliance Defending Freedom people
American evangelicals
American nationalists
American Presbyterians
Articles containing video clips
Controversies of the 2020 United States presidential election
Far-right politicians in the United States
Federalist Society members
Former Methodists
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Missouri Attorneys General
Missouri lawyers
Missouri Republicans
People associated with Hogan Lovells
People from Lexington, Missouri
People from Springdale, Arkansas
People from Vienna, Virginia
Republican Party United States senators
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48644641 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder%20of%20Laquan%20McDonald | Murder of Laquan McDonald | The murder of Laquan McDonald took place on October 20, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. McDonald was a 17-year-old African American youth who was fatally shot by a white Chicago Police Officer, Jason Van Dyke. Police had initially reported that McDonald was behaving erratically while walking down the street, refusing to put down a knife, and that he had lunged at officers. Preliminary internal police reports described the incident similarly, leading to the shooting being judged a justifiable and Van Dyke not being charged at the time.
On November 24, 2015, thirteen months after the shooting, a court ordered the police to release a dash cam video of the shooting. It showed that McDonald was walking away from the police when he was shot 16 times by Officer Van Dyke. That same day, Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder and initially held without bail at the Cook County Jail. He was released on bail on November 30. The city reached a settlement with McDonald's family for $5 million in April 2015. On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder, as well as 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
Protests followed the shooting of McDonald, demanding changes in police and judicial procedure, and for the dismissal or resignation of city and county officials. Rahm Emanuel won a second term in 2015 as Mayor of Chicago (prior to the release of the dash cam video), but Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez lost her bid for reelection in 2016.
At the request of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the United States Department of Justice initiated a civil rights investigation into McDonald's death and the activities of the Chicago Police Department. It released its report in January 2017, describing the police as having a culture of "excessive violence", especially against minority suspects, and of having poor training and supervision. DOJ and city officials signed a consent decree for a plan for improvement to be overseen by the courts. Moreover, three Chicago police officers were tried for allegedly attempting to cover up events related to the shooting and were found not guilty by the Cook County Circuit Court on January 17, 2019.
Profiles
Laquan McDonald
Laquan Joseph McDonald (September 25, 1997 – October 20, 2014) was from the 37th Ward of Chicago. According to NBC Chicago news, McDonald earned $1,100 working after school in the Youth Advocate Program in 2014. His final report card showed that he had earned an A in personal finance and music, a B in world studies and reading, and Cs in biology and algebra. He had a younger sister and brother. One of McDonald's teachers described him as "very respectful and reserved". The teacher added that McDonald "was not aggressive".
Toxicology reports later revealed that McDonald had PCP in his blood and urine at the time of the encounter with police. Defense expert pharmacologist James Thomas O’Donnell testified that the amount found was enough to suggest he had taken the drug on the day of the shooting and that it could cause "significant bizarre behavior".
Jason Van Dyke
Jason D. Van Dyke (born 1978) was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, and graduated from Hinsdale South High School in 1996. He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. Xavier University in Chicago. A 14-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department and earning a salary of $78,012, Van Dyke is married and has two children. Since 2001, some 20 citizen complaints have been filed against Officer Van Dyke, but none resulted in disciplinary action. Ten of the complaints allege he used excessive force, and two involve the use of a firearm. A jury awarded a Chicago man $350,000 after determining Van Dyke employed excessive force during a traffic stop. One complaint involved verbal abuse by Van Dyke, who used a racial slur. Van Dyke was involved in preparing questionable documentation of a separate shooting in 2005.
According to CNN, "the Chicago Police Department has about 12,000 officers. Like Van Dyke, 402 officers have 20 or more complaints on file in the database. The most complaints against any officer, according to the database, is 68. The database shows that of the 20 complaints against Van Dyke none resulted in discipline. Five complaints in the database were "not sustained", five were unfounded, four resulted in exoneration, five had unknown outcomes and one resulted in no action taken."
Events
Shortly before 10:00 p.m., police were called to investigate McDonald at 4100 South Pulaski Road, responding to reports that he was carrying a knife and breaking into vehicles in a trucking yard at 41st Street and Kildare Avenue. When officers confronted McDonald, he used a knife with a blade to slice the tire on a patrol vehicle and damage its windshield. McDonald walked away from police after numerous verbal instructions from officers to drop the knife, at which point responding officers requested Taser backup, according to radio recordings released December 30, 2015, to Politico and NBC Chicago in response to Illinois Freedom of Information Act requests.
Video of the shooting shows that Van Dyke was advancing on McDonald, while McDonald was walking away from Van Dyke when the first shot was fired. The first shot hit McDonald, who spun and fell to the ground. As McDonald lay on the ground, still holding the knife, Van Dyke fired more shots into him. In total, Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald in 14–15 seconds, expending the maximum capacity of his 9 mm semi-automatic firearm. Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before opening fire and began shooting approximately six seconds after exiting his car. The first responding officer said that he did not see the need to use force, and none of the at least eight other officers on the scene fired their weapons.
Laquan McDonald was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m.
Initial police report
The initial police portrayals of the incident, consisting of about 400 pages of typed and handwritten reports, prompted police supervisors to rule the case a justifiable homicide and within the bounds of the department's use of force guidelines. The reports did not say how many times McDonald was shot and said McDonald was acting "crazed" and lunged at officers after refusing to drop his knife. Michael D. Robbins, one of the attorneys representing the McDonald estate, said his initial thoughts were that "I didn't think there was a case if he had lunged at a police officer", adding, "The police narrative, without exception, is that the use of force is justified and necessary, which it sometimes is."
One police report described that McDonald "raised the knife across chest" and pointed it at Van Dyke. Van Dyke told investigators that he feared McDonald would rush him with the knife or throw it at him, and he also recalled a 2012 Police Department bulletin warning about a knife that was also capable of firing a bullet, as well as throwing knives and also spring-loaded knives capable of propelling the blade. One report noted that McDonald's knife "was in the open position" but, when announcing charges against Van Dyke, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said the knife was found folded at the scene.
Medical report
According to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office's autopsy report, which was revealed by journalist Jamie Kalven through a public records request, McDonald was shot in his neck, chest, back, both arms, right leg and a graze wound to his left scalp. Nine of the 16 shots hit McDonald's back, and he was shot as he lay on the ground. His death was ruled a homicide.
Dash-cam video
Five police videos of the incident are known to exist, including the view from a camera mounted in the marked police SUV that Van Dyke was riding in as he and his partner responded to the scene. The videos show that at least eight police vehicles responded to the scene, but no video has been released from the other three vehicles. Chicago police officers are required to make sure that their video systems are working properly, and that they should "submit a ticket if they are unable to download digitally recorded data." There were no repair tickets requested by any of the three vehicles missing video on the scene that night.
When video footage was initially released, it did not contain audio, although Chicago Police dashboard cameras should automatically record audio when the video recording is activated. According to a CPD video, "The in-car camera system automatically engages both the audio and the video recording when the vehicles' emergency roof lights are activated" and each vehicle has a front and rear camera and microphone. City officials initially blamed a technical problem. It was later revealed that the audio recording equipment in officer Van Dyke's vehicle had been "intentionally damaged" according to records from police technicians. Another car's audio was disabled because the microphones were in the glove compartment with the batteries inserted backwards. For another, a mobile start-up recorder was corrupted, and a third was processing other video at the time. The Sun-Times published that a sergeant reported officers throwing their microphones on the roof of the Jefferson Park police station to the Internal Police Review Authority a month and a half before the release of the Laquan McDonald dashcam video in an apparent protest against being recorded. Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo defended officers in an interview, saying that operator error could be any number of accidents, adding, "Things always trickle downhill so it winds up the responsibility of the beat officer—God forbid it's the responsibility of the agency."
Burger King surveillance video
There was also a security camera at a nearby Burger King restaurant that may have captured the shooting, but during the time of the shooting there is a gap of 86 minutes in the recording. The manager of the restaurant said that on the night of the shooting, five Chicago police officers gained access to the video and passwords on the equipment, and that by the time the Independent Police Review Authority requested to view the footage the next day, it had been erased. The Tribune later obtained footage showing a Chicago police employee working on the restaurant's computers after the shooting. However, according to FBI sources, the video taken from the Burger King surveillance camera was not altered, and there were gaps throughout the surveillance video because the system at Burger King was a "mess".
$5 million settlement
Attorneys for the estate of Laquan McDonald entered into negotiations with the City of Chicago to settle claims arising out of his death. The Chicago City Council approved a $5 million settlement to McDonald's family on April 15, 2015, although the family had not yet filed a wrongful-death lawsuit. Emails from the mayor's office surrounding the case later revealed the settlement deal was finalized the day after the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, secured his second term by a run-off election. Part of the settlement agreement required that the video be sealed until investigations were completed, which could have delayed the release of the video for years. Aldermen were not shown the dash-cam video before approving the settlement, although city Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton said the existence of the video influenced the council's decision to settle before a lawsuit, and details about the video were given to the Finance Committee during a hearing. The decision took only "5 seconds out of a two hour, 45 minute meeting" to approve. Dick Simpson, a UIC political scientist and former Chicago alderman, said "It's odd not only in this case but maybe in others that there isn't more debate on the floor because that's where the public gets informed."
Legal proceedings
Requests for documents
Reporters noted inconsistencies between the narrative police told reporters, the autopsy, and an anonymous eyewitness account before the video was publicly released. A whistle-blower expressed concern over the handling of the McDonald shooting a few weeks after the shooting, revealing "that there was a video and that it was horrific", to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman. The pair issued a statement calling on Chicago police to release the dash-cam video of the incident. The city of Chicago denied at least 15 requests for its release.
Brandon Smith, a freelance journalist, and William Calloway, a community activist, filed a request for the video under the Freedom of Information Act in May 2015. When the request was denied, Smith filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago in Cook County Circuit Court. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sent a letter to the Police Department the day before a court hearing, stating that they cannot withhold the video. She said that they had not substantiated their claim that releasing the video would interfere with an ongoing investigation or jeopardize a fair trial if any officer was charged. On November 19, Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama denied the city's request for a stay, ordering the video to be released to the public no later than November 25. The city did not appeal the judge's decision. On November 24, after a press conference, the video was released that showed an officer fatally shooting McDonald.
Investigations
A criminal investigation also began weeks after the shooting, when the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) forwarded the case to the state's attorney's office and the FBI. The U.S. attorney's office confirmed on April 13, 2015, that they had been conducting a federal criminal investigation of the McDonald case in conjunction with the state attorney's office, after contradictions were found between the initial police report and the dash-cam video. The police report said that McDonald had lunged at an officer, but the video footage showed that McDonald made no lunges. The video does show that McDonald was swinging the knife in his right hand in a wide, but aimless manner as he walked down the street, and also appears to show that McDonald turns slightly to look briefly at Van Dyke and another officer who are pointing guns at him, but that he continues to walk away from both officers at the moment Van Dyke opens fire on him.
On December 2, 2015, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch a separate civil rights investigation of Chicago police tactics. DOJ enlarged the scope of their investigation based on early findings, issuing a report in January 2017. (See later section on this).
Van Dyke's trial
On November 24, 2015, the same day the video was released, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder, and Van Dyke turned himself in to authorities. He was initially held without bail at Cook County Jail for six days. Crowd funding website GoFundMe shut down a page that was set up to raise funds for his legal defense shortly after it had raised just over $10,000. On November 30, Van Dyke was granted bail, set at $1,500,000. He posted $150,000—ten percent of the bail—and was released from jail.
On December 16, Van Dyke was indicted by a grand jury on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct. The six counts of first-degree murder were:
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure With Firearm,
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure With Firearm,
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm,
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm,
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm Proximately, and
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm Proximately.
On December 29, 2015, Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to the charges. Van Dyke's attorney, Daniel Herbert, said that his client fears for his life. Protesters yelled at him and called him names as he approached the courthouse for his arraignment. Van Dyke had a history of complaints in his police career but was cleared in most cases. After the arraignment, Herbert said he was looking for evidence to clear his client's name.
On January 29, 2016, Herbert accused Chicago's mayor of tainting possible jurors, as he considered an effort to move the trial outside of Cook county:
It's been dozens and dozens of comments where [Rahm Emanuel] essentially indicted my client. He's characterized my client's actions as being heinous without even seeing the videotape. So when the mayor of the city in which the pool of jurors is drawn from has taken such an adamant stance, it makes it extremely difficult for us to get a juror in here who is not predisposed to a finding of guilt.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Van Dyke would have faced a prison sentence of 20 years to life. The case marked the first time in nearly 35 years that a Chicago police officer had been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality.
On March 23, 2017, the charges against Van Dyke were six counts of first degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each shot fired at Laquan McDonald. Jury selection began on September 5, 2018, and the trial commenced on September 17.
On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, but was found not guilty of official misconduct. On January 18, 2019, Van Dyke was sentenced to 6.75 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction alone instead of the other more serious charges, which was contrary to Illinois Supreme Court precedent. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a request with the Illinois Supreme Court to vacate Van Dyke's sentence for second-degree murder and impose a sentence on each of the 16 aggravated battery counts. A majority of Illinois Supreme Court Justices voted to deny this request without a hearing or explanation. Two Justices authored dissenting opinions stating that the decision of the sentencing judge had been unlawful.
The Illinois Department of Corrections refused to disclose the state prison where Van Dyke was initially incarcerated to serve his sentence, citing safety reasons. He was transferred on February 5, 2019, to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. During his first week at this facility, he was assaulted by other inmates while in the general population. Sometime after the assault, he was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville in Otisville, New York. In November 2019 he was moved from the Otisville federal prison to a state prison outside Illinois.
On February 3, 2022, Van Dyke was released from prison after serving 39 months of his 81-month sentence. He was eligible to be released early due to good behavior in prison. He was subsequently on mandatory supervised release, i.e. parole.
Trial of March, Walsh, and Gaffney
On June 27, 2017, three current or former Chicago police officers were charged with conspiracy, official misconduct, and obstruction of justice connected with a coverup of the shooting. Those charged were David March, the lead detective in this case, Joseph Walsh, Van Dyke's partner on the night of the shooting, and Thomas Gaffney. Their bench trial began on November 27, 2018, and a verdict was expected by January 15, 2019. On January 17, 2019, Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson found them not guilty of the charges.
Reactions
Protests
November protests
After the release of the video on November 24, 2015, a few hundred people blocked the intersection of Roosevelt and Michigan Avenue in protest. On November 25, 2015, more protests were held. On the second night of protest, marchers tore off lights from a public Christmas Tree in Daley Plaza and multiple marchers were arrested.
On Friday, November 27, a major day for Christmas shopping in the U.S., a group of protesters chanted "sixteen shots" and other slogans while marching on Michigan Avenue, the city of Chicago's central shopping district. This caused some businesses to shut their doors and the police closed Michigan Avenue, a six-lane street.
December protests
A 16-hour sit-in at the Cook County building on December 3, 2015, proceeded after Alvarez refused to resign on December 2. Protests erupted in the Loop after Mayor Emanuel called a special council meeting to apologize for his slow reaction to fix problems within the Chicago police department. On December 24, a month after the video had been published, protests disrupting Christmas-season shopping were again held on Michigan Avenue. Protesters also stood in the alley behind Emanuel's home the last three days in a row in December, promising to continue for 13 more days—to symbolize the 16 shots McDonald took from police—in an effort to force Emanuel to resign. On New Year's Eve, protesters temporarily took over parts of City Hall and a Hyatt hotel lobby, chanting "Rahm gotta go."
January protests
Over 100 African-American pastors boycotted the 30-year tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Breakfast, hosted by Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel. The breakfast was attended by Rev. Matthew Ross, who interrupted the proceedings when he stood up and began to chant "16 shots and a cover-up" during a musical performance. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, about 200 Black Youth Project 100 Chicago Chapter members, dressed in black T-shirts with the words "Fund Black Futures" written across them, blocked the entrance of the Chicago Patrolmen's Federal Credit Union in an effort to protest the Fraternal Order of Police's advocacy of the Chicago police department. City officials continue to deal with the aftermath of the McDonald shooting and are working to change the long-standing policy of keeping police shooting video under wraps. Protesters chanted "16 shots and a cover-up!" as Officer Van Dyke walked into court for a status hearing on January 29, 2016.
February protests
Laquan McDonald protesters hijacked a rally to support Apple's decision to fight back in the FBI–Apple encryption dispute in front of the Apple store on Michigan Avenue on February 24, 2016. Protesters started chants against Alvarez and Emanuel, but the crowd dispersed after several in the crowd got into a shoving match with police.
March protests
A rally started at State and Jackson consisting of "less than 50 people" on March 2, 2016, to mark 500 days since the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Other protesters were arrested for blocking the flow of traffic on Adams near Michigan Avenue.
Other reactions
On November 25, 2015, Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released a statement sending condolences to McDonald's family and criticizing the Emanuel administration and Chicago's police force.
On November 29, 2015, Jabari Dean, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, posted an online threat to kill 16 unspecified white males—one for every shot fired at McDonald, plus any white police officers who might intervene—at the University of Chicago. The university announced that classes would be cancelled the next day. The same day, the FBI arrested Dean, who was charged with "transmitting in interstate commerce communications containing a threat to injure the person of another." Federal prosecutors stated they did not believe Dean had the means to carry out the attack he had threatened. The federal charge was later dropped against Dean.
Chance the Rapper referred to the shooting on Saturday Night Live on December 12, 2015. He would refer to the shooting again on his second appearance on the show with Kanye West on February 13, 2016.
On June 2, 2016, Vic Mensa released a song entitled "16 Shots", referring to McDonald's death.
Aftermath
Chicago Police Accountability Task Force
On December 1, 2015, Rahm Emanuel created the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, led by then-President of the Chicago Police Board Lori Lightfoot, "to review the system of accountability, oversight and training that is currently in place for Chicago's police officers." The Task Force's final report, published April 13, 2016, found racism and systemic failures in the city's police force, validating complaints made for years by African-American residents.
Firing of Superintendent Garry McCarthy
Emanuel fired Superintendent Garry McCarthy on December 1, 2015, under political pressure from protesters. McCarthy knew of the dash-cam video a few weeks after the shooting and stripped Officer Van Dyke of his police powers. Due to the IPRA investigation under way, McCarthy could not fire the officer, nor discipline him or put him on a "no pay" status. McCarthy refused to resign, so Emanuel fired him.
Calls for Anita Alvarez's resignation
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez was criticized by political challengers and others for the delay in the release of the dash-cam video, which she viewed weeks after the shooting, and the long wait to charge Van Dyke for McDonald's death. This took more than a year and was completed only hours before the court-ordered release of the video. She faced a difficult primary election in March 2016. Calls for her resignation came from within her own party, including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
As of December 2, 2015, Alvarez had refused to resign, which prompted a 16-hour sit-in by protesters at the Cook County building on December 3, 2015. Alvarez said she had been cooperating with the FBI investigation since November 2014, and asked her critics why she would call in the FBI if she was attempting a cover-up. She also defended Mayor Rahm Emanuel's comments that it would be premature to release the dash-cam video in light of the investigation, saying it "was in the best interest of the investigation". Kim Foxx, a former prosecutor running against Alvarez with support by Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders, disagrees:
By waiting so long to press charges in this case, State's Attorney Alvarez has done the McDonald family and the entire criminal justice system a heinous disservice. She waited until her hand was forced by intense political and media pressure surrounding the release of this painful video. She waited even after City Hall was prepared to pay the McDonald family $5 million in damages.
In the 2016 election for Cook County State's Attorney, Alvarez was the subject of an activist campaign (sometimes referred to as "#ByeAnita") that criticized her for her handling of the Lacquan McDonald and Rekia Boyd cases, along with her broader role in the criminal justice system. Alvarez lost her bid for reelection in the March 2016 primary, earning 29 percent of the votes. Challenger Kim Foxx, who ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, won with 58 percent of the votes, and went on to win the general election.
Calls for Rahm Emanuel's resignation
McDonald's killing occurred four months before Emanuel faced a difficult campaign for reelection in February 2015. (He failed to win the majority and was elected by 56 percent in a runoff election—the first in Chicago's history— against Jesús "Chuy" García). The delayed timing of release of the video, the Chicago City Council's awarding the family $5 million within weeks of McDonald's death, and Emanuel firing Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, prompted some commentators to accuse the city of cover-up.
Journalist Ben Joravsky wrote in the Chicago Reader:
Just imagine [if] Mayor Emanuel had released the video in, say, November [2014]—without being forced to by a lawsuit.... But of course, he didn't do the right thing. He buried the video. He allowed officials to mislead the public. He hid the tapes because most likely he [...] assumed it would hurt his reelection campaign. Thus he not only did the immoral thing, he did the politically stupid thing. Cook County state's attorney Anita Alvarez probably would've quickly responded with an indictment—just like she did earlier this week, when the tape actually was released. I mean, it's really hard to look at that tape and not call for an indictment. If the mayor had done that, he wouldn't be the villain in this sordid story. He'd be the hero. Or at least the guy who finally, for once in his life, did the right thing.
Emanuel subsequently created the Task Force on Police Accountability to review current training and oversight for Chicago's police officers. He also maintained he never saw the dash-cam video until it was publicly released and would not resign. Emanuel's image received a blow when U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang accused city attorney Jordan Marsh, an attorney who handled cases in the office that represents the city in police misconduct lawsuits, of hiding evidence in a fatal police shooting.
There was no legal mechanism to force Emanuel's resignation. State representative La Shawn K. Ford filed House Bill 4356 to set up the mechanism for a recall election, but it was not passed. Illinois Republican governor Bruce Rauner said he would sign such a bill.
Video released of shooting of Ronald Johnson III
On December 1, 2015, the city announced that there was a video of a fatal police shooting that took place on October 12, 2014. Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez's office investigated possible criminal charges against Officer George Hernandez (whose name was revealed on December 7), who shot Ronald Johnson III in the back during a foot chase. The officer opened fire seconds after arriving on the scene, when Johnson was moving away from police. Johnson was allegedly a known gang member and also allegedly armed; a gun was recovered at the scene. The attorney for Johnson's family contends police planted the weapon. The city fought to keep the video of the incident secret so as not to jeopardize the officer's right to a fair trial should he be indicted. As in the McDonald case, the video lacks audio. The city released the video on December 7 due to pressure for transparency prompted by the McDonald case. No charges have been filed against Hernandez.
De-escalation and Taser training
On December 30, 2015, Emanuel announced sweeping reforms within the police department, including new police training for handling tense situations and equipping every officer with a Taser, to be used to control suspects. All officers were to be equipped and trained by June 2016. Officers at the McDonald scene were waiting for a Taser to arrive before Van Dyke shot the suspect. At that time, 21.5 percent of officers had been trained to use a Taser.
Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said on the subject: "I know there are people on the job for 9 or 10 years who have not been trained. I can't say they have all requested training, but I am sure some have. It's very hard to get the proper training as a Chicago police officer and that's something that has been going on for a very long time. There is certainly a percentage of my members who believe that the Chicago Police Department doesn't offer the same level of training, or the same opportunities to obtain training, as many other police departments in the country. I think the general attitude is that's just 'Welcome to the Chicago Police Department.'"
Emails from the mayor's office released
On December 31, 2015, 3,085 pages of emails split across seven PDFs regarding the McDonald case and other police-related matters were obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The timing of the release (on New Year's Eve) has been described by reporters as "strategic". The exchanges show that the mayor's staff had been communicating with both the IPRA and the office of the Cook County state attorney since the October 2014 shooting. They document fact-gathering and news-monitoring, to crafting a unified "message" on how to respond to media inquiries regarding the McDonald shooting. The emails included several highly redacted speech drafts to use if the video was released, prepared nearly a year before the release of the dash-cam video, which Emanuel's top aides knew existed. The emails also cover the topics of discrepancies between the police reports and dash-cam video, the lack of audio on the dash-cam videos (which senior mayoral adviser David Spielfogel noted: "The number of malfunctions seems a bit odd."), express exasperation with statements made by the IPRA, note the missing Burger King footage, and reports on protests and social media activity—all of which is highly redacted.
The media characterized the emails as calling into question the "independence" of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), an agency approved by Chicago City Hall in 2007 to investigate allegations of police misconduct and made up entirely of civilian members. Aides to the mayor have responded that the communications were routine and did not interfere with the IPRA's investigation.
Scott Ando, the former head of the IPRA who was fired by Emanuel in December, concurred that the mayor's office never interfered in the agency's investigations. He said: "We were generally asked to clear every messaging or release to the press ... I really think if I'd been allowed to be more responsive to the questions that were posed, it would have cleared the air a lot sooner." Adam Collins, a spokesperson for the mayor, has defended the mayor's office to the media, saying, "The mayor's office obviously does not direct investigations, nor are any employees involved in those investigations."
In a May 26 email to Janey Rountree, Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Safety, Collins wrote: "Against my recommendation, IPRA has already provided this response that was a little antagonistic. I've asked that they follow up with this as well to soften and reinforce their message." The emails also reveal communication from the mayor's office with influential religious leaders Reverend Jesse Jackson and Father Michael Pfleger, asking them to soften their critical remarks on the case and explain the city could not fire Officer Van Dyke due to the IPRA investigation.
Several persons, including Streetsblog Chicago reporter Steven Vance, Chicago Teachers Union member Luke Carman, and Twitter user "natalie solidarity", and others, collaborated on an effort to catalog the documents for easier access by readers.
Request for emails from Van Dyke and other police officers
In January 2016, CNN submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for emails regarding the McDonald case from Van Dyke, his partner, and other police officers. CNN requested emails from both official CPD email accounts and personal email accounts. However, after CNN appealed to the Public Access Counselor, CPD officials revealed that they had not attempted to look through the officers' personal email accounts, arguing that personal emails are not public records subject to disclosure.
In August that year, Attorney General Lisa Madigan ruled that emails on personal accounts that pertain to public business must be disclosed to the public. Her ruling was a binding opinion, requiring CPD to search the officers' email accounts and comply with the decision within 35 days. CPD appealed the ruling in court, and lost in September 2017. Ultimately, CNN never received the emails that it had requested. Each of the officers, individually or through their attorneys, either refused to provide emails, ignored the request, or denied having any relevant emails.
Documents from 2005 Incident
In May 2016, CNN revealed documents of a 2005 incident, in which Van Dyke had written a police report without speaking to any of the personnel or witnesses at the scene of another police shooting. Records of the investigation indicated that Van Dyke had also inappropriately thrown out the original documents pertaining to the case.
Two recommendations that officers be fired
On August 16, 2016, inspector Joseph Ferguson recommended that 10 officers be fired, followed up by Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson's recommendation on August 18, that 7 police officers be fired for false or misleading statements made about the incident.
2017 DOJ Report and agreement for oversight of city police
DOJ announced the completion of their investigation and issued a "scathing report" in early January 2017, noting problems in a police culture of excessive violence, especially against minorities; and lack of training and oversight. DOJ and the city have a preliminary agreement to undertake broad reforms for improvement, with the goal of increasing the safety of both citizens and officers. It noted the department's improvements, such as training in de-escalation to avoid use of force, issuance of Tasers, officers wearing body cameras, and the reshaping of a police oversight body.
Also in January 2017, the city and DOJ signed "an agreement in principle to work together, with community input, to create a federal court-enforceable consent decree addressing the deficiencies uncovered during the investigation. An independent monitor, who has yet to be chosen, will oversee compliance."
In February 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled that the Trump administration would "pull back" on federal civil rights probes of local police departments. He would not commit to enforcing the consent decree signed by Chicago and the Department of Justice.
In June 2017, Mayor Emanuel backed off his commitment to enter a court-enforced agreement with the federal government. He said that an independent monitor selected by the city could work with the Justice Department to pursue police reforms without court oversight. Later that month, a group of civil rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit seeking court enforcement of police reforms. Also in June, Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, and Jesús "Chuy" García, another member of the Cook County Board, advocated for judicial oversight, as did Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson. In August 2017, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit in federal court requesting that a judge oversee police reform in Chicago.
In July 2018, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan announced a proposed court settlement that was the first draft of a consent decree that would eventually serve as a court-enforced mandate governing reforms of the Chicago Police Department.
Documentary film
16 Shots is a documentary film about the shooting of Laquan McDonald and the subsequent police cover-up. It was directed by Richard Rowley, and produced by Jacqueline Soohen and Jamie Kalven. Originally titled The Blue Wall, it premiered on May 1, 2018, at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto. Rowley subsequently updated the film to include later events, and re-titled it 16 Shots. The revised documentary premiered on June 14, 2019, on the Showtime network.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, October 2014
Skullcap Crew
Dismissal of Robert Rialmo
References
External links
External video dashcam footage
Catalog of emails from the mayor's office regarding the case
2014 in Illinois
2015 in Illinois
2010s in Chicago
2014 murders in the United States
African-American-related controversies
Black Lives Matter
Chicago Police Department
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Murder in Chicago
Police brutality in the United States
Protests in the United States
Articles containing video clips
October 2014 events in the United States
October 2014 crimes in the United States
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Murders by law enforcement officers in the United States
Incidents of violence against boys |
48711453 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%20San%20Bernardino%20attack | 2015 San Bernardino attack | On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack, consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party of about 80 employees in a rented banquet room. 14 people were killed and 22 others were seriously injured. Farook was a U.S.-born citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born green card holder.
After the shooting, the couple fled in a rented Ford Expedition sport utility vehicle (SUV). Four hours later, police pursued their vehicle and killed them in a shootout, which also left two officers injured.
According to the FBI's investigation, the perpetrators were "homegrown violent extremists" inspired by foreign terrorist groups. They were not directed by such groups and were not part of any terrorist cell or network. FBI investigators have said that Farook and Malik had become radicalized over several years prior to the attack, consuming "poison on the internet" and expressing a commitment to jihadism and martyrdom in private messages to each other. Farook and Malik had traveled to Saudi Arabia in the years before the attack. The couple had amassed a large stockpile of weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making equipment in their home.
Enrique Marquez Jr., a friend and former neighbor of Farook's, was investigated in connection with his purchase of the two rifles used in the attack. Marquez was arrested in December 2015, and later pleaded guilty to federal charges of providing material support for terrorism and making false statements in connection with the acquisition of a firearm. Marquez also admitted that, in 2011, he conspired with Farook to carry out shooting and bombing attacks, plans which were abandoned at the time. Three other people, including Farook's brother and sister-in-law, were arrested for immigration fraud in connection with a sham marriage between Marquez and Mariya Chernykh (the sister-in-law of Farook's brother). All three pleaded guilty.
The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and the deadliest terrorist attack to occur in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks. It was surpassed by the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016.
Events
Before the attack
Farook and Malik left their six-month-old daughter with Farook's mother at their Redlands home the morning of the attack, saying they were going to a doctor's appointment. Farook, a health inspector for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, attended a departmental event at the banquet room of the Inland Regional Center. The event began as a semi-annual all-staff meeting and training event, and was in the process of transitioning into a department holiday party/luncheon when the shooting began. There were a total of 91 invited guests, with 75–80 people stated to have been in attendance.
Farook arrived at the departmental event at about 8:30a.m. and left midway through it at around 10:30a.m., leaving a backpack atop a table. Coworkers reported that Farook had been quiet for the duration of the event, and that he had been looking at his phone before his departure. He posed for photos with other coworkers.
Inland Regional Center attack
Shortly before 11:00a.m., the event went on an unscheduled break due to a technical problem. At 10:58a.m. PST, Farook and Malik, armed with semi-automatic pistols and rifles, opened fire outside the building, killing two people. Farook entered the building a minute later, firing on those in attendance. He was followed quickly by Malik. They wore ski masks and black tactical gear (including load bearing vests holding magazines and ammunition), but not ballistic or bulletproof vests. The entire shooting took two or three minutes, during which the shooters fired more than 100 bullets before fleeing.
During the shooting, many of those in attendance managed to escape the room and flee deeper into the building, while those who remained hid underneath tables or in bathrooms, closets, and cupboards. A bullet hit a fire sprinkler pipe, causing water to pour down the banquet room, making it difficult to see. The perpetrators moved between tables, shooting anyone who moved or made a sound. One person was struck by a bullet that tore through an interior wall, while another was shot while trying to escape through a glass door near where the shooters had entered. Three men attempted to stop one of the shooters, but all were shot; it was unclear if any of them survived. One victim was killed while shielding a coworker with his body. Some initially mistook the attack as an active shooter drill; some previous such drills had taken place in the same banquet room.
An unidentified source told an NPR journalist that witnesses appeared to recognize Farook by his voice and build. Other witnesses easily identified one of the shooters as a female because of her slight build and tight-fitting clothes. Sources reported that Malik pledged bay'ah (allegiance) to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL, on a Facebook account associated with her as the attack was underway. Later reports described the posting as being made on behalf of both shooters.
The perpetrators left three explosive devices connected to one another at the Inland Regional Center, contained inside the backpack left by Farook during the departmental event. The devices were described as pipe bombs constructed with Christmas lights and tied together, combined with a remote controlled car that was switched on. The poorly constructed devices failed to explode. Authorities believe that the pipe bombs were meant to target the emergency personnel responding to the scene. The device was hidden inside a canvas bag, and its build was similar to schematics published in Al Qaeda's Inspire magazine. Coworkers noticed the bag before the attack occurred, but thought that Farook would return for it and therefore did not investigate it.
Police response
It took 3 minutes and 32 seconds for the first police unit to respond to the shooting following the initial 9-1-1 emergency call. Two police officers with the San Bernardino Police Department (SBPD) arrived almost simultaneously at 11:04a.m.; when two other SBPD officers arrived two minutes later, the four officers entered the building through the southeast side and began to search for shooters. Another team of four officers (one from SBPD and the others from the Fontana Police Department) entered the building from the northern side and joined the first team in clearing all of the first-floor rooms.
At 11:14a.m., the San Bernardino Fire Department made a Twitter post about an emergency on the 1300 block of Waterman Avenue, with the police working to clear the scene. Roads in the area were closed to traffic. The San Bernardino SWAT team happened to be conducting its monthly training exercise a few miles away from the scene at the time of the attack, which allowed them to arrive at the scene within eleven minutes. Police used a battering ram to get into the complex. The first floor was cleared by 11:17a.m., and a secondary sweep of the building began fourteen minutes later.
As officers searched for shooters inside the building, others aided the wounded. Probation officers initially set up a makeshift triage center near the entrance of the building, but deemed it to be too close and relocated it across the street by 11:15a.m. Because survivors were soaked from water pouring from the fire sprinkler pipe, they became slippery for officers to hold. Injured victims were carried out on blankets and chairs, as litters and tactical stretchers were unavailable at the time. An SBPD tactical medic supervised the extraction operation. It took 57 minutes to get the last of the injured to a hospital.
Ultimately, about 300 officers and agents from city, county, state, and federal agencies responded to the active-shooter event, converging on the scene as people were being evacuated. The FBI, the ATF, and the Los Angeles Police Department counter-terrorism unit were called in to assist. Police were on the lookout for a black SUV used by the perpetrators to flee the scene.
At 5:08p.m., the explosive devices placed by Farook were discovered by an FBI SWAT officer. They were later detonated individually by a bomb squad, with the last detonation occurring at 8:37p.m. Earlier, at 11:33a.m., an abandoned roller luggage bag was found in a second-floor office and mistaken for a suspicious device, but was deemed safe by 2:22p.m. The Inland Regional Center was declared clear by authorities at 9:29p.m.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a Pilatus PC-12 surveillance aircraft to the area, which circled the skies above San Bernardino for hours, mainly in the area where the shooting took place and in areas under investigation by police, and departed after the shootout between the perpetrators and police.
Car pursuit and shootout
Law enforcement began a search for the suspects. A witness gave Farook's name to police, who quickly learned that he had rented a black Ford Expedition EL SUV with Utah license plates four days before the attack. Based on information provided by one of Farook's neighbors, two plainclothes investigators went to the perpetrators' Redlands home on North Center Street for surveillance shortly before 3:00p.m., about four hours after the initial attack at the Inland Regional Center had begun. They spotted Farook's vehicle leaving the residence and gave chase onto the freeway at 3:08:19p.m. Officers from other agencies joined the pursuit shortly afterward.
At least one fake explosivea metal pipe stuffed with cloth made to resemble a pipe bombwas thrown at the police during the pursuit. The SUV exited the freeway onto North Tippecanoe Avenue and briefly stopped at a stoplight, where a pursuing officer observed the perpetrators putting on tactical vests and equipping themselves with rifles. The SUV then continued onward onto East San Bernardino Avenue and entered a suburban area, where the shooter in the backseat, identified as Malik, began firing at police through the back window at 3:08:43p.m.
Eventually, at 3:09:22p.m., the SUV stopped in a neighborhood about away from the scene of the initial attack. The couple continued to exchange fire with police from inside their vehicle. Malik opened the side passenger door and shot at the first police vehicle to stop, which was about away from the SUV. Farook exited out of the driver's front door, stood between the two open doors, and opened fire on the same vehicle.
As more officers converged, Farook walked across the street towards some homes while continuing to fire, pinning officers behind their squad cars. He intended to flank the sheriff's deputy who had first stopped. Realizing this, several officers repositioned themselves and focused their gunfire on Farook. One police officer eventually shot Farook in the right side, allowing others to flank and shoot at him. Farook fell to the ground, shot several times in the legs and upper body. He fired at the police once with a handgun as he lay wounded on the ground, injuring an officer before the gun malfunctioned. Farook was shot again several times and killed. His body was handcuffed and positioned to lie face-down afterwards.
Officers then fired on the SUV as Malik continued to shoot at them. During this exchange of gunfire, a second police officer was wounded. Using a police cruiser as cover, officers fired into the back of the SUV while rescuing the wounded officer and a second one. At 3:14:53p.m., Malik was killed by several bullets that struck her in the body and head.
The gunfire lasted for around five minutes before both perpetrators were killed. Police used BearCat armored personnel carriers in confronting the shooters. Because authorities feared that the vehicle could contain explosives, the "Rook"—a motorized battering ram with a protective shield—was used to investigate the SUV.
The sheriff's department confirmed that a man and a woman were killed. Seven police agencies were involved in the final shootout, with 23 officers firing a combined total of at least 440 rounds. The perpetrators fired at least 81 rounds. During the shootout, police asked residents to stay indoors. Nearly 2,500 rounds of .223-caliber and 9mm ammunition were recovered from the vehicle, along with medical supplies and a trigger apparatus believed to be for the explosives left behind at the Inland Regional Center.
Victims
Fatalities
In the Inland Regional Center attack, 14 civilians were killed. They ranged in age from 26 to 60. Nine were residents of San Bernardino County, five from nearby Riverside, Los Angeles, and Orange counties. Three (Isaac Amanios, Bennetta Betbadal, and Tin Nguyen) were refugees from Eritrea, Iran, and Vietnam, respectively. Thirteen were county employees; ten were environmental health inspectors, comprising about a quarter of that department's workforce.
According to autopsy reports released on May 27, 2016, all died from multiple gunshot wounds, mostly to their backs. Twelve died almost immediately. Shannon Johnson and Bennetta Betbadal later died at a makeshift triage center across the street from the Inland Regional Center.
Injured
The attack injured 22 civilians, some seriously and some shot. Several were hospitalized about 15 minutes after leaving the building. Five went to nearby Loma Linda University Medical Center and six to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. The last discharged was from Loma Linda on March 3, 2016.
One police officer was shot during the gunfight, and one was injured by flying glass or shrapnel. Both were struck in the thigh; one realized he was hit thirteen hours later.
Investigation
After the attack, police identified married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik as the perpetrators. They used two illegally transferred .223-caliber semi-automatic rifles which had been modified to defeat California's magazine release requirements, two 9 mm caliber semi-automatic pistols, and an improvised explosive device in the attack. Neither shooter had a criminal record, and neither was on Terrorist Screening Database lists. The New York Times reported that "by all accounts so far, the government had no concrete intelligence warning of the assault," although the federal government has long feared "homegrown, self-radicalized individuals operating undetected before striking one of many soft targets" in the United States.
On December 3, 2015, the FBI took over as the leading federal law enforcement agency on the case, treating the probe as a counter-terrorism investigation. The FBI conducted a "massive" investigation, and by December 7, 2015, had already conducted about 400 interviews and collected about 320 pieces of evidence. On January 5, 2016, the FBI began investigating what the perpetrators' activities were during an 18-minute period from 12:59p.m. to 1:17p.m. on the day of the shooting, and they appealed to the public for assistance. Investigators believe that the two were driving around the city in an apparent attempt to remotely detonate the explosive device they left behind at the scene of the attack.
Motive
The investigation found that the perpetrators were inspired by terrorists and terrorist organizations. In Senate Judiciary Committee testimony given on December 9, 2015, FBI Director James B. Comey said that they "were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom," before their engagement and as early as the end of 2013. They reportedly spent at least a year preparing for the attack, including taking target practice and making plans to take care of their child and Farook's mother. Comey has said that although the investigation has shown that the couple was radicalized and possibly inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, there is no indication that they were directed by such a group or part of a broader cell or network.
On December 16, 2015, Comey said, "We can see from our investigation that in late 2013, before there is a physical meeting of these two people [Farook and Malik] resulting in their engagement and then journey to the United States, they are communicating online, showing signs in that communication of their joint commitment to jihadism and to martyrdom. Those communications are direct, private messages." Comey said that the FBI's investigation had revealed that the perpetrators were "consuming poison on the Internet" and both had become radicalized "before they started courting or dating each other online" and "before the emergence of ISIL." As a result, Comey said that "untangling the motivations of which particular terrorist propaganda motivated in what way remains a challenge in these investigations, and our work is ongoing there."
In one Arabic-language online radio broadcast, ISIL described the perpetrators as "supporters" following the attack. During the police investigation into the attack, The New York Times reported that this language indicated "a less direct connection" between the shooters and the terrorist group. In a December 5, 2015, English-language broadcast on its Bayan radio station, ISIL referred to the couple as "soldiers of the caliphate," which is a phrase ISIL uses to denote members of the terrorist organization. The New York Times reported that it was unclear why the two versions differed.
On December 1, 2016, nearly one year after the attack, authorities speculated on Farook's forced participation in the training event and Christmas party as the trigger. Newly discovered emails indicated that Malik had objected to the party and did not want her husband to participate. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in an interview with ABC News that Malik stated that "she didn't think that a Muslim should have to participate in a non-Muslim holiday or event" in an online account.
Searches
After the deaths of the perpetrators, the focus shifted to a small townhouse in Redlands, a few miles away from San Bernardino; the place where Farook and Malik met after the shooting and where they lived. By 6:00 p.m. PST on December 2, 2015, police were executing a search warrant on the house. According to the San Bernardino police chief, Farook and Malik were listed in the rental agreement. Police used robots to search the house. Investigators found 2,000 9-mm handgun rounds, 2,500 .223-caliber rounds, and the tools that could be used to make improvised explosive devices. The FBI also initially reported that it had removed twelve pipe bombs from the perpetrators' home; the FBI clarified several days later that it had recovered 19 types of pipes that could be converted into bombs from the home.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was able to complete an "urgent trace" on the firearms less than two hours after the guns were recovered.
The couple was not completely successful in destroying their personal electronics, including mobile phones and hard drives, prior to the attack.
Pursuant to a federal search warrant, the authorities also searched a townhouse in Corona twice, where Farook's brother and father lived. The FBI said that the family was cooperating and authorities did not arrest anyone.
On December 10, 2015, federal authorities began searching Seccombe Lake park in downtown San Bernardino after receiving a tip that the shooters visited the area on the day of the attack. A dive team was sent into the shallow edge of the lake to search for evidence; nothing relevant was found.
Media reporters enter shooters' home
After the FBI completed a search of the perpetrators' townhouse, it was turned over to its landlord. On December 4, 2015, the landlord used a crowbar to open the door to the home and allowed reporters and photographers to "swarm" the home. NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders said that Inside Edition paid the building's landlord to access the home. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News all broadcast live video from the home, showing images of personal photographs, documents, identification cards, and baby items.
The scene was described as having a "media circus" atmosphere. Sanders, in particular, was criticized for showing close-up images of children's photographs and Farook's mother's identification card; the network later said it regretted doing so. According to legal experts, the broadcast was not illegal, but it raised concerns about journalistic ethics. The Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote that the media's behavior was "terrible" and opined that "this was a story poorly suited to live coverage, without the time and ability to document a scene, determine what's relevant and provide the filtered product to readers." Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies said that the decision to enter the apartment was "ludicrous" and critiqued the "callous and competitive behavior" of the media on a grave story.
Phone decryption
On February 9, 2016, the FBI announced that it was unable to unlock one of the mobile phones they had recovered because of the phone's advanced security features. The phone was an iPhone 5C owned by the county and issued to its employee, the shooter Farook. The FBI first asked the National Security Agency to break into the phone, but the NSA was unable to do so. As a result, the FBI asked Apple Inc. to create a new version of the phone's iOS operating system that could be installed and run in the phone's random access memory to disable certain security features. Apple declined due to its policy to never undermine the security features of its products. The FBI responded by successfully applying to a United States magistrate judge, Sherri Pym, to issue a court order, mandating Apple to create and provide the requested software. The order was not a subpoena, but rather was issued under the All Writs Act of 1789.
Apple announced their intent to oppose the order, citing the security risks that the creation of a backdoor would pose towards its customers. It also stated that no government had ever asked for similar access. The company was given until February 26, 2016, to fully respond to the court order.
In response to the opposition, on February 19, 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a new application urging a federal judge to compel Apple to comply with the order. The new application stated that the company could install the malware on the phone in its own premises, and after the FBI had hacked the phone via remote connection, Apple could remove and destroy the malware.
The same day, Apple revealed that it had discussed with the FBI four methods to access data in the iPhone in early January, but one of the more promising methods was ruled out by a mistake during the investigation of the attack. After the shooter's phone had been recovered, the FBI asked San Bernardino County, the owner of the phone, to reset the password to the shooter's iCloud account in order to acquire data from the iCloud backup. However, this rendered the phone unable to back up recent data to iCloud unless its passcode is entered. This was confirmed by the Department of Justice, which then added that any backup would have been "insufficient" because they would not have been able to recover enough information from it.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney, Michael Ramos, filed a brief claiming the iPhone may contain evidence of a possible third shooter and a "dormant cyber pathogen" that could have been introduced into the San Bernardino County computer network.
On March 28, the Department of Justice announced that it had unlocked the iPhone and withdrew its suit. Initial reports, citing anonymous sources, stated that Israeli company Cellebrite was assisting the FBI with this alternative. However, The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported that the FBI instead paid "professional hackers" who used a zero-day vulnerability in the iPhone's software to bypass its ten-try limitation, and did not need Cellebrite's assistance. In April 2021, The Washington Post reported that the Australian company Azimuth Security, a white hat hacking firm, had been the one to help the FBI.
In September 2016, the Associated Press, Vice Media, and Gannett (the owner of USA Today) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI, seeking to compel the agency to reveal who it hired to unlock Farook's iPhone, and how much was paid. On September 30, 2017, a federal court ruled against the media organizations and granted summary judgment in the government's favor. The court ruled that the company that hacked the iPhone and the amount paid to it by the FBI were national security secrets and "intelligence sources or methods" that are exempt from disclosure under FOIA; the court additionally ruled that the amount paid "reflects a confidential law enforcement technique or procedure" that also falls under a FOIA exemption.
National reactions to Apple's opposition of the order were mixed. A CBS News poll that sampled 1,022 Americans found that 50% of the respondents supported the FBI's stance, while 45% supported Apple's stance.
In March 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the FBI eventually found that Farook's phone had information only about work and revealed nothing about the plot."
Possibility of third shooter
Initial news reports and witness accounts following the attack led to a search for up to three shooters, but police eventually determined that there were only two since only two firearms were used in the attack according to ballistics evidence.
Immediately following the shootout that killed the perpetrators, investigators in armored vehicles at the perpetrators' townhouse considered ordering an evacuation, but instead ordered the neighborhood to shelter in place and cordoned off the area. From 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., police asked residents of the area to stay in their homes with doors locked and secure after residents reported a person jumping fences. No one was found; the reports may have been from officers at the scene. A person detained after running away from the scene of the shootout was thought to be a possible third suspect, but police determined that he was not connected to the shooting; the person was booked on an unrelated outstanding misdemeanor warrant.
On February 18, 2016, the FBI revealed that they have not ruled out the possibility of a third shooter, but clarified that they are continuing to operate under the assumption that only two shooters were involved. Some witnesses who claimed to have seen three gunmen at the Inland Regional Center continued to assert their accounts. As of December 1, 2016, it was reported that the FBI has yet to rule out that possibility.
Related arrests and prosecutions
Enrique Marquez Jr.
Enrique Marquez Jr., a next-door neighbor of Farook's until May 2015, and who is related to him by an immigration fraud sham marriage, was investigated in connection with his purchase of the two rifles used in the attack, a charge to which he agreed to plead guilty. There is no record of a transfer of the weapons from Marquez to the attackers.
Personal background
Marquez converted to Islam in 2007. Though not regularly, Marquez attended both the Islamic Center of Riverside and the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco four or five years before the attack, and stood out because of his Hispanic background.
Federal prosecutors allege that in 2011, Farook and Marquez conspired to carry out shooting and bombing attacks at the library or cafeteria at Riverside Community College, where both were students, and on rush-hour traffic on California State Route 91 in Corona. Marquez reportedly told authorities that he and Farook tried to carry out the attack in 2011 or 2012. This plan was abandoned after three men in the Inland Empire were arrested for their plan to kill Americans in Afghanistan. Though the FBI had previously disputed this fact, Marquez was found to have ties to these men in 2016.
By 2011, Marquez spent most of his time in Farook's home, listening to, watching, and reading radical Islamist propaganda, including Inspire magazine, the official publication of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and videos produced by Al-Shabaab as well as the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki.
On November 29, 2014, Marquez entered into a sham marriage with Mariya Chernykh, a Russian woman who arrived in the U.S. on a J-1 visa and the sister of the wife of Farook's older brother. According to The New York Times, Marquez was said to have been paid between $5,000 and $10,000 to enter the green card marriage so that Chernykh could become a U.S. citizen.
Early on December 5, 2015, federal authorities searched Marquez's Riverside home under a federal search warrant. He waived his Miranda rights and cooperated "extensively" with federal investigators, "discussing at length his relationship with" Farook.
Arrest and legal proceedings
On December 17, 2015, Marquez was arrested and charged in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California with three federal criminal counts: conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism (i.e., himself, a firearm, and explosives); making a false statement in connection with acquisition of firearms ("straw purchase"); and immigration fraud. Another "straw purchase"-related charge and another immigration fraud charge were added on December 30, 2015. He faced a maximum of 50 years in prison if convicted on all of the charges. The court ordered Marquez held without bail, saying that Marquez would pose a danger to the community if released.
Marquez initially pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. On April 28, 2016, he was named in an indictment as a co-conspirator in document fraud in relation to the arrest of Mariya Chernynk. In February 2017, as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Marquez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and to making false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm. Marquez also admitted to plotting with Farook the alleged abandoned terror plots in 2011. As part of the plea agreement, the government agreed to dismiss the marriage fraud charges.
The maximum sentence is 25 years in prison plus a $500,000 fine. Testifying in court when Marquez's guilty plea was entered, the father of one of the victims denounced the plea agreement, saying that it would lead to a sentence that was too light; the U.S. Attorney explained that while he understood the father's pain, the government did not have enough sufficient evidence to prosecute Marquez for more serious offenses.
The sentencing hearing was initially set for November 6, 2017, but it was postponed to February 26, 2018, four days before. Sentencing was postponed indefinitely on June 26, 2018, after Marquez obtained a new attorney. On October 23, 2020, Marquez was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Raheel Farook, Tatiana Farook, and Mariya Chernykh
Syed Raheel Farook, the brother of gunman Rizwan Farook, 31; his wife Tatiana Farook, 31; and her sister Mariya Chernykh, who was Marquez's "wife" in the sham marriage, were all subject to an investigation into Chernykh's sham marriage with Marquez, which arose during the investigation into the attack.
Personal backgrounds
Raheel Farook served in the U.S. Navy in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2007, and was awarded two medals for service during the War on Terror. He was described by friends and neighbors as sociable and extroverted compared with his brother Rizwan. In 2011, he married Tatiana, a Russian citizen who immigrated to the U.S. in 2003 from her home village of Vysokiy, located from Moscow.
Tatiana had first settled into Richmond, Virginia, immediately after arriving into the U.S. on a J-1 visa. There, she married another man, but the couple divorced in 2010 and Tatiana moved to southern California, where she met Raheel. In California, she began launching several businesses, including a kiosk in The Shops at Montebello, a shopping mall.
Mariya Chernykh, the younger sister of Tatiana Farook and also from the village of Vysokiy, left Russia and entered the U.S. on a J-1 visa in July 2009 and failed to depart on October 30 of the same year as required by her visa. At some point since her arrival in the U.S., she made an application for asylum, though it is currently unknown if it was ruled on. She dated a Los Angeles man for years and had a child with him, but were forced to split up due to the sham marriage. On November 29, 2014, Chernykh entered into a sham marriage with Marquez in order to gain legal status in the U.S. According to The Los Angeles Times, after the sham marriage, Chernykh struggled to play her part; on Christmas 2014, she was urged by Tatiana to stop posting online photos of herself with her ex-boyfriend. She began working with her sister as a saleswoman at her sister's kiosk. In January 2017, she pled guilty to immigration fraud.
In late 2015, Chernykh and Marquez were set to be interviewed by immigration officials. As a result, according to the indictment, Raheel Farook created a fraudulent back-dated lease agreement that claimed the two were living with him and his wife since their marriage. Raheel and Tatiana Farook also allegedly staged family photos of Chernykh and Marquez, and established a joint transaction account for them. Prosecutors allege that on December 3, the day after the Inland Regional Center attack, Tatiana Farook lied to investigators about Chernykh and Marquez's marriage.
On February 18, 2016, the FBI searched a residence belonging to Raheel Farook, but did not comment on the exact nature of the search. Raheel was not arrested or named a suspect at that time.
Arrests and legal proceedings
On April 28, 2016, the Farooks and Chernykh were arrested and charged with conspiracy to knowingly make false statements under oath with respect to immigration documents. These charges carry a maximum sentence of five years.
All three pleaded not guilty to the charges against them in a federal court in Riverside. Raheel Farook's mother and Chernykh's ex-boyfriend agreed to post their bails.
The day following her arrest, Chernykh posted her bail, but she was transferred to the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by the U.S. Marshals Service and is being held at Adelanto Detention Center. Deportation proceedings against her are pending, but are on hold until the criminal case is resolved.
U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker issued a statement, saying that the charges arose from the investigation into the attack. The indictment alleged that Chernykh paid Marquez to enter into a sham marriage to obtain U.S. immigration benefits. The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement that Raheel and Tatiana Farook conspired in the sham marriage by "witnessing Marquez and Chernykh's wedding, taking staged family pictures of Marquez and Chernykh, establishing a joint checking account for the couple and creating a back-dated lease for Marquez and Chernykh to create the illusion that they shared a marital residence."
Chernykh pleaded guilty to conspiracy, perjury, and two counts of making false statements. She was set to be sentenced on November 20, 2017, and faced up to 20 years in prison.
In January 2017, Raheel Farook pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, arising from his making of a false statement in support of Chernykh's application for permanent residency. The following month, Tatiana Farook pleaded guilty to the same crime. The maximum sentence in both cases is five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.
Both were initially set to be sentenced on November 13, 2017, but this was postponed to March 19, 2018, three days before. Both were later sentenced to three years of probation.
Rafia Sultana Shareef (Rafia Farook)
In March 2020, Rafia Sultana Shareef, the mother of Syed Rizwan Farook and Syed Raheel Farook, pleaded guilty to one count of destroying evidence, becoming the only person prosecuted for a crime directly related to the December 2015 terrorist attack. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julius Nam argued, “The defendant chose to deliberately destroy a document that was central to the understanding of the planning”. The FBI recovered what prosecutors called the "attack plan" from a shredder in Raheel Farook's home in Corona and reconstructed it using a computer and scanner, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Grigg.
Prosecutors did not allege in court that Shareef, who shared a townhouse with Farook and Malik, knew in advance about the terrorists' plans, but in a statement on March 3, 2020 said, "Shareef admitted that she knew her son had produced the document, and she believed it was directly related to his planning of the IRC attack." The "attack plan" included a diagram of the Inland Regional Center conference room and a pathway for the shooters to take between the tables. It also listed action items such as practicing at a shooting range, destroying electronics that authorities could use for tracking, purchasing parts to construct IEDs, and transferring funds to Shareef’s bank account.
On February 11, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Jesus G. Bernal sentenced Shareef to six months of home confinement and three years of probation. While the maximum sentence had been 20 years in federal prison, the under her plea agreement she faced at most 18 months in custody. Prior to sentencing, Shareef apologized to the handful of victims and survivors who were in the Riverside courthouse gallery, saying, “I pray for each of your family members” and to the judge, saying, “I am sorry for what I did.”
Aftermath
Emergency response discussion
On March 18, 2016, California State Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management conducted a hearing in which first responders were to share details of the response to the attack and possible aspects that could be improved on. During the hearing, Michael Madden, a lieutenant with the San Bernardino Police Department and one of the first responders to respond to the Inland Regional Center, requested state aid in encrypting police radio channels. He explained that police communications were playing out real-time across the U.S. during the attack, being broadcast on YouTube and other network systems. According to Madden, this put first responders at risk, as potential suspects could have been monitoring the communications and tracking the actions of law enforcement. He added that the City of San Bernardino, as well as San Bernardino County, were moving towards a radio system that will incorporate encrypted frequencies.
Gun control discussion
President Barack Obama called for "common sense" gun safety laws and stronger background checks as part of a bipartisan effort to reduce the frequency of such shootings. In an interview with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell, Obama said, "We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world." Obama called for legislation to block people on the anti-terrorism No Fly List from purchasing weapons. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan opposed this proposal, saying that denying persons on the list the right to bear arms would violate their due process rights.
After the shooting, some Democrats sought to tighten federal gun control regulations, "laying blame on a culture that allows even people who are not permitted to board airplanes to buy guns with ease," while some Republicans criticized what they believe to be "the Obama administration's unwillingness to come to terms with the true threat posed by Muslim extremists." Members of the California State Legislature also proposed to revisit some gun-control proposals that had previously stalled, with one assemblyman proposing a prohibition of the sale of guns to those on the federal No Fly List. On January 8, 2016, Representative Pete Aguilar of Redlands spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives and called for gun control. After the shooting, gun sales in California increased by more than 18,000, following an overall down year for statewide sales. Applications for concealed carry permits also rose 750 percent in San Bernardino County.
The families of the shooting victims reacted to President Obama's executive action to tighten gun regulation and expand background checks. A number of family members expressed support for the plans as necessary and long overdue, while a few doubted whether they would reduce gun violence.
Prior to the attack, a measure was sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein; it would allow the U.S. to ban sales of guns and explosives to people listed on government watch lists of suspected terrorists. The so-called "Feinstein Amendment" came to the Senate floor one day after the attack, but failed on a party-line vote, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. On June 16, 2016, Tina Meins, the daughter of one of the fourteen people killed in the attack, spoke in a press conference arranged by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, just a day after Murphy launched a fifteen-hour filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor, regarding federal gun control legislation. In the press conference, Meins asserted her support for gun control and questioned the Senate's vote against the Feinstein Amendment, explaining that more than 2,000 terror suspects were able to purchase firearms since 2004.
The New York Times published a front-page editorial, the first in 95 years, which called for gun-control measures. The Times editorial board wrote: "It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency." Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of the Times, said the placement of the editorial on the front page was "to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country's inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns."
On April 20, 2016, California state lawmakers gave initial approval to five gun control bills, which outlawed assault weapons with detachable magazines, prohibited the sale of rifles with the "bullet button" device, banned possession of magazines holding more than ten rounds, required the collection of information on people intending to buy ammunition for any kind of firearm, and required improvised firearms to be registered with the state and given a serial number. The measures have been opposed by a number of politicians and gun rights organizations such as the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of California. Some of the bills were approved by Governor Brown on July 1, 2016, and went into effect in 2017.
Lawsuits
On January 13, 2016, the wife of one of the slain victims filed wrongful death claims against San Bernardino County and dozens of unidentified individuals, and also sought damages totaling , saying that her husband's death was preventable and caused by negligence. On January 22, 2016, three relatives of another slain victim filed identical claims against the county for similar reasons and also claimed that the county fostered a hostile workplace environment and failed to provide safety to the Inland Regional Center's employees. The three relatives sought for a total of .
At least five San Bernardino city residents filed claims with the City of San Bernardino seeking reimbursement for least in property damage caused by bullets in the shootout, which hit a resident's truck and other items; the City Council voted 5–2 to deny the claims. The city police were one of seven law enforcement agencies on the scene, and it is uncertain which agency fired what bullets.
On May 31, 2016, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Farook's family. This lawsuit would allow them to seize both the proceeds of two life insurance policies (and the policies themselves) held by Farook, both of which listed Farook's mother as the beneficiary. One policy worth was taken out by Farook in 2012 when he started working for the county, while the other, worth , was taken out the following year. According to NBC News, "Under federal law, assets derived from terrorism are subject to forfeiture. A federal judge must approve an application before the government can seize the money." In the six-page lawsuit, the life insurance company claimed that Farook's mother was aware of her son's intentions to carry out the attack, and reasoned that she should not be entitled to the benefits as a result. On September 2, 2016, government officials said they wanted to give the money to the victims' families.
Planned memorial
On May 5, 2016, a group created by San Bernardino County announced plans for a memorial dedicated to the victims and survivors of the attack, as well as the first responders involved. Details about the design of the memorial, meant to be a fountain and garden, were released on the next day. Groundbreaking was slated to begin on June 2, the six-month anniversary of the attack. As of 2017, however, the memorial was still in the development stage. Such memorials usually take five to ten years to be completed.
Threats against schools
Hours after the attack, classes were canceled at California State University, San Bernardino and at Loma Linda University following a bomb threat that was called in to the university's medical center, where many injured victims were being treated.
On December 15, after the Los Angeles Unified School District received a threat of attack by "explosive devices" and other means, Superintendent of Schools Ramon Cortines ordered the closure of all schools in the district for the day. Cortines cited the San Bernardino incident as an influence in his decision to close the schools. New York City received the same threat, but the New York City Department of Education determined it was a hoax and took no action.
Release of after-action report
On September 9, 2016, the Police Foundation and the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) released a review of law enforcement response to the attack. The review provided a detailed overview of the incident response; lessons learned to improve responding agencies' policies, procedures, tactics, systems, culture, and relationships; and guidance to other agencies and first responders as they prepare for responses to terrorist, active shooter, or other hostile events, and mass-casualty incidents.
Survivors
On the one-year anniversary of the attack, it was reported that a number of survivors were accusing San Bernardino County of cutting off support for them. This included a lack of access to counseling or antidepressant medication, the injured attempting to get surgeries approved and physical therapy covered, a lack of assistance in dealing with a complex workers' compensation program, and health insurers refusing to cover injuries because they occurred during an act of workplace violence. A county spokesman denied the accusations and said, "The county is, and always has been, committed to ensuring our employees get all the care they need."
Anniversary commemoration events
On the first anniversary of the attack, a bicycle ride hosted by the Redlands-based club “Ride Yourself Fit” was held at 7:30a.m.; dozens of local bicyclists, many of them police officers, rode , with one mile representing each person killed in the attack. The remembrance bicycle ride continues to be held every December 2. A remembrance ceremony was held at a local blood bank at 8:00a.m. Later that morning, over 200 people at the Inland Regional Center held a moment of silence outside the building. At 3:30p.m., a "Peace Garden" was opened on the campus of California State University, San Bernardino; it was dedicated in the memory of five of the victims, who were all alumni of the university.
Reactions
Local and county reactions
Following the attack, county offices, including the Department of Public Health, were closed the remainder of the week, with only the most essential services remaining open. Most of the county's 20,000 employees returned to work on December 7, 2015, though Inland Regional Center personnel worked remotely. The Inland Regional Center remained closed until January 4, 2016. Its two main buildings now operated under heightened security; the building where the attack took place will remain closed indefinitely. The location of a planned train station next to the Center was moved eastward due in part to the Center's new security procedures.
The City of San Bernardino incurred up to in unforeseen expenses (such as the deployment of more police officers on extended shifts) as a result of the attack, and planned to seek state and federal emergency funds to help cover the costs.
California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County, since roughly 35 percent of the Department of Public Health employees were among those killed or wounded in the attack, and the attack left the county with very few health inspectors to do critical work. The emergency declaration will allow the state of California to send in additional health inspectors for assistance. On March 22, 2016, San Bernardino County unanimously voted to accept a agreement with the California Association of Environmental Health Administrators to provide up to 30 temporary health inspectors to replace those currently on leave. As of May 29, 2016, 50 percent of county environmental health staff remain on leave, and temporary staff remain on loan from Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Marin, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo Counties.
About 2,000 local residents gathered at a candlelight vigil at San Manuel Stadium in downtown San Bernardino the day after the attack. At the vigil, Mayor R. Carey Davis praised the first responders, said that the tragedy "has forever impacted our community," and talked about how the community had come together following the attack. Five of the victims and one of the killers were graduates of California State University, San Bernardino; on December 8, 2015, more than 1,000 students, alumni, and community members attended a candlelight vigil on campus in honor of the victims. On January 4, 2016, a memorial for the slain victims was held at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in nearby Ontario, with thousands in attendance, including Governor Brown, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Christian pastor Rick Warren.
After the attack, a relief fund for San Bernardino was set up and has raised as of March 3, 2016. On July 5, 2016, the relief fund finished distributing the entirety of its raised money to the families of the deceased victims (which all received 80 percent of the funds), the 22 people injured (who received 15.5 percent), and witnesses to the shooting (who received 4.5 percent). There were 75 named recipients in total, though the two police officers injured in the shootout with the perpetrators declined their share of the compensation.
Nationwide reactions
President Barack Obama ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House, public buildings, military installations, Navy ships, embassies, and diplomatic missions. On December 18, 2015, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met in San Bernardino with families of the fatal victims, and emergency personnel who first responded to the incident.
The governors of several states also ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff in their states as well. In California, the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the State Capitol was canceled and all flags were lowered to half-staff.
Twelve of the dead were members of the Service Employees International Union; SEIU international president Mary Kay Henry said, "Our hearts are broken from this tragedy. ... We will unite to demand that our nation does everything possible to ensure that no more families have to feel this pain, sadness and loss ever again."
Muslim reaction
American Muslim organizations, including Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Society of Orange County, condemned the attacks. A night vigil was held the day after the attacks at the largest mosque in the San Bernardino County, the Ahmadiyya Baitul Hameed Mosque.
In the aftermath of the shooting, CAIR reported an escalation in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S., including the throwing of a pig's head at a mosque in Philadelphia, the beating of a Queens shop owner, and incidents of death threats and vandalism. A number of attacks and incidents of vandalism in southern California in the weeks following the attack were investigated as anti-Muslim hate crimes.
A "Muslims United for San Bernardino" campaign to raise money to assist victims' families with funeral expenses and other needs raised more than 152,000 from more than 1,000 donors, becoming the most successful crowdfunding venture Muslim Americans have ever launched.
On December 15, 2015, three senior White House officialsValerie Jarrett, Cecilia Muñoz, and Ben Rhodesmet with American Muslim and Sikh leaders to discuss the increase in violent attacks upon members of the American Muslim and Sikh community following the attack (Sikhs are not Muslims but have been occasionally targeted in anti-Islamic bias-motivated crimes).
On January 19, 2016, Dabiq, the online propaganda magazine of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, released an issue praising the shooting and the perpetrators.
Political reactions
Governor Brown said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families and everyone affected by the brutal attack." On September 12, 2016, Brown and California Attorney General Kamala Harris awarded eight police officers the Medal of Valor for their roles in emergency response during the attack and the subsequent shootout with the perpetrators.
Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the Pakistani government will continue to offer "all possible legal assistance" to the U.S. in the investigation, and that:
[No] sane Pakistani or Muslim could even think about doing such acts, and only few people are using the name of Islam for their wrongdoings, which is defaming our religion. Such heinous acts also lead to serious difficulties for millions of Muslims who live in Western and other countries, and the extremists and nationalist elements in those societies look at Muslims with suspicions. Islamophobia is being spread around the world. What the terrorists are doing has nothing to do with Islam.
In an address to the nation delivered from the Oval Office on December 6, 2015, President Obama declared the shooting an act of terrorism, referring to the shooters as having "gone down the dark path of radicalization" and embracing a "perverted version of Islam." Obama said that "the threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it" and promised that the United States will "destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us." Obama also outlined the ongoing fight against ISIL (including U.S. airstrikes, financial sanctions, and targeted special operations) and urged Americans to not give in to fear. It was just the third speech from the Oval Office in the seven years of Obama's presidency.
Many Republican U.S. presidential candidates at the time, among them Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, responded by claiming the United States was at war. Chris Christie, who was campaigning in Iowa at the time, declared, "What the fact is this is a new world war and one that won't look like the last two. And this is one where it's radical Islamic jihadists everyday are trying to kill Americans and disrupt and destroy our way of life." Jeb Bush stated, "If this is a war, and I believe it is since they have declared war on us, we need to declare war on them."
In the New York Review of Books, Wyatt Mason observed that a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, committed by a devout Christian a week earlier, did not lead to the kind of rhetorical outpouring produced by the San Bernardino attack, and argued that the difference in response suggested racism was at work.
Some Muslim leaders objected to Obama's request that American Muslims help to "root out" extremism in their communities. Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour commented, "I'm tired of this idea that extremism can only mean Muslims or Islam or people who are associated with Islam ... why is it that we're only obsessed with Islam and Muslim communities?". "We would never ask any other faith community to stand up and condemn acts of violence committed by people within their groups", she said.
On June 18, 2016, President Obama issued a Weekly Address addressing the San Bernardino attack and a mass shooting that occurred at a gay nightclub six days earlier. In the speech, he addressed the topics of homegrown terrorism and gun control.
Being tough on terrorism, particularly the sorts of homegrown terrorism that we've seen now in Orlando and San Bernardino, means making it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on assault weapons that are capable of killing dozens of innocents as quickly as possible. That's something I'll continue to talk about in the weeks ahead.
Controversies
In response to the shooting, Donald Trump called for a "total and complete" ban on Muslims entering the United States "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." Trump's statement drew widespread condemnation, including from the White House, the Pentagon, the United Nations, and foreign leaders such as British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Trump's suggestion was met with condemnation from both Democratic and Republican candidates for the presidency in 2016. Trump, in an interview on Good Morning America, cited the internment of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans during World War II as precedent for his proposal.
The attack reignited the debate over whether U.S. government should expand electronic surveillance of Americans, and specifically whether Congress should adopt legislation mandating that technology companies provide a backdoor so that law enforcement has access to encrypted communication. Technology companies oppose such legislation, arguing that it would unacceptably undermine security. At a December 9, 2015, hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Comey called upon tech companies offering end-to-end encryption (such as Apple) to revise their "business model." There is no evidence that the shooters in San Bernardino used encrypted communications, although Comey said the attackers in the Curtis Culwell Center attack earlier the same year exchanged encrypted text messages. Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are working on encryption legislation. Additionally, Feinstein reintroduced legislation that would require tech companies to report "knowledge of any terrorist activity" they become aware of, a measure that worried Silicon Valley technology companies, which object to such measures on privacy grounds.
The use of BearCat armored vehicles by police during the shootout revived debate over use of military and military-style equipment by police, with some law-enforcement officials saying that the shooting showed a need for police to acquire such equipment.
See also
Gun violence in the United States
Gun law in the United States
Gun politics in the United States
Mass shootings in the United States
List of rampage killers (religious, political, or ethnic crimes)
Islamic terrorism
2009 Fort Hood shooting
2015 Chattanooga shootings
Orlando nightclub shooting
Curtis Culwell Center attack
List of terrorist incidents, 2015
North Park Elementary School shooting
Notes
References
External links
Coverage at the Los Angeles Times
Statement from Association of Regional Center Agencies
2015 crimes in California
2015 mass shootings in the United States
2015 murders in the United States
21st-century mass murder in the United States
Attacks in the United States in 2015
Deaths by firearm in California
December 2015 crimes in the United States
December 2015 events in the United States
History of San Bernardino, California
Islamic terrorism in California
Islamic terrorism in the United States
Islamic terrorist incidents in 2015
Mass murder in 2015
Mass murder in California
Mass murder in the United States
Mass shootings in California
Mass shootings in the United States
Massacres in the United States
Murder in California
Terrorist incidents in California
Terrorist incidents in the United States in 2015
Workplace violence in the United States |
48716424 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FS-FHSS | FS-FHSS | Frequency selection and frequency hopping communication technology is a unique spread spectrum communication technology.
FS-FHSS is developed to be applied in various wireless communication fields. It is innovated by GONSIN, a Chinese company. It has developed the unique FS-FHSS based on the spread spectrum communication technology. The new technology can monitor and select the undisturbed frequency band. FS-FHSS makes sure the stability of the communication. It is applied to GONSIN wireless conference system, which implements the discussion、simultaneous interpretation、voting and others comprehensive conference application functions.
The feature of FS-FHSS: it uses the 2.4 GHz global frequency band, it does not require certificate. The wireless frequency points are abundant, 80 frequency points could be used; 2.4 GHz has high frequency carrier, the signal diffractivity is relatively weak so that other 2.4 GHz signal could not interfere the conference signal. Adopt FS-FHSS technology, it detect the wireless environment and select the usable frequency point before the conference, during the conference, it hops between the backup frequency points, which can avoid the interference source. It utilizes the efficient digital audio encode and decode technology, one frequency point can transmit 4 channels, it just need two frequency points to transmit 8 channels simultaneous interpretation signals. Because the system occupies relatively less frequency points resource and utilizes the FS-FHSS technology to operate, it can co-work with WIFI and other 2.4 GHz system. It applies the digital audio encryption and digital modulation to avoid any interception and malicious interference; the signal transmitting power could be modified in according with the application occasion, the adjusting range is from 50 meters to 500 meters( the customized system can cover 2,000 meters).
SPREAD SPECTRUM The idea of spread-spectrum radio transmission was proposed by the military who was seeking ways to prevent radio signals from being monitored or blocked by hostile parties. The two inventors came up with the notion of changing the frequency of a transmission at regular intervals faster than the enemy could retune. A special receiver that knew the frequency-hopping pattern could follow it and pick up the entire transmission. The hopping patterns were controlled by the
punched holes in piano rolls became known as frequency-hopping spread spectrum(FHSS).
References
Telecommunications
Wireless |
48730466 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivious%20data%20structure | Oblivious data structure | In computer science, an oblivious data structure is a data structure that gives no information about the sequence or pattern of the operations that have been applied except for the final result of the operations.
In most conditions, even if the data is encrypted, the access pattern can be achieved, and this pattern can leak some important information such as encryption keys. And in the outsourcing of cloud data, this leakage of access pattern is still very serious. An access pattern is a specification of an access mode for every attribute of a relation schema. For example, the sequences of user read or write the data in the cloud are access patterns.
We say if a machine is oblivious if the sequence in which it accesses is equivalent for any two input with the same running time. So the data access pattern is independent from the input.
Applications:
Cloud data outsourcing: When writing or reading data from a cloud server, oblivious data structures are useful. And modern database rely on data structure heavily, so oblivious data structure come in handy.
Secure processor: Tamper-resilient secure processors are used for defense against physical attacks or the malicious intruders access the users’ computer platforms. The existing secure processors designed in academia and industry include AEGIS and Intel SGX encrypt. But the memory addresses are still transferred in the clear on the memory bus. So the research finds that this memory buses can give out the information about encryption keys. With the Oblivious data structure comes in practical, the secure processor can obfuscate memory access pattern in a provably secure manner.
Secure computation: Traditionally people used circuit-model to do the secure computation, but the model is not enough for the security when the amount of data is getting big. RAM-model secure computation was proposed as an alternative to the traditional circuit model, and oblivious data structure is used to prevent information access behavioral being stolen.
Oblivious Data Structures
Oblivious RAM
Goldreich and Ostrovsky proposed this term on software protection.
The memory access of oblivious RAM is probabilistic and the probabilistic distribution is independent of the input. In the paper composed by Goldreich and Ostrovsky have theorem to oblivious RAM: Let denote a RAM with m memory locations and access to a random oracle machine. Then t steps of an arbitrary program can be simulated by less than steps of an oblivious . Every oblivious simulation of must make at least accesses in order to simulate t steps.
Now we have the square-root algorithm to simulate the oblivious ram working.
For each accesses, randomly permute first memory.
Check the shelter words first if we want to access a word.
If the word is there, access one of the dummy words. And if the word is not there, find the permuted location.
To access original RAM in t steps we need to simulate it with steps for the oblivious RAM. For each access, the cost would be O().
Another way to simulate is hierarchical algorithm. The basic idea is to consider the shelter memory as a buffer, and extend it to the multiple levels of buffers. For level , there are buckets and for each bucket has log t items. For each level there is a random selected hash function.
The operation is like the following: At first load program to the last level, which can be say has buckets. For reading, check the bucket from each level, If (V,X) is already found, pick a bucket randomly to access, and if it is not found, check the bucket , there is only one real match and remaining are dummy entries . For writing, put (V,X) to the first level, and if the first I levels are full, move all I levels to levels and empty the first I levels.
The time cost for each level cost O(log t); cost for every access is ; The cost of Hashing is .
Oblivious Tree
An Oblivious Tree is a rooted tree with the following property:
All the leaves are in the same level.
All the internal nodes have degree at most 3.
Only the nodes along the rightmost path in the tree may have degree of one.
The oblivious tree is a data structure similar to 2-3 Tree, but with the additional property of being oblivious. The rightmost path may have degree one and this can help to describe the update algorithms. Oblivious tree requires randomization to achieve a running time for the update operations. And for two sequences of operations M and N acting to the tree, the output of the tree has the same output probability distributions. For the tree, there are three operations:
build a new tree storing the sequence of values L at its leaves.
insert a new leaf node storing the value b as the ith leaf of the tree T.
remove the ith leaf from T.
Step of Create: The list of nodes at the ithlevel is obtained traversing the list of nodes at level i+1 from left to right and repeatedly doing the following:
Choose d {2, 3} uniformly at random.
If there are less than d nodes left at level i+1, set d equal to the number of nodes left.
Create a new node n at level I with the next d nodes at level i+1 as children and compute the size of n as the sum of the sizes of its children.
For example, if the coin tosses of d {2, 3} has an outcome of: 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3 stores the string “OBLIVION” as follow oblivious tree.
Both the and have the O(log n) expected running time. And for and
we have:
INSERT (b, I, CREATE (L)) = CREATE (L [1] + …….., L[ i], b, L[i+1]………..)
DELETE (I, CREATE (L)) = CREATE (L[1]+ ………L[I - 1], L[i+1], ………..)
For example, if the or is run, it yields the same probabilities of out come between these two operations.
References
Daniele Micciancio. Oblivious Data Structure: Application to Cryptography.
Oded Goldreich. Software Protection and Simulation on Oblivious RAM. TR-93-072, November, 1993.
John C. Mitchell and Joe Zimmerman. Data-Oblivious Data Structures. Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, US.
Craig Gentry, Kenny A. Goldman, Shai Halevi, Charanjit S. Jutla, Mariana Raykova, and Daniel Wichs. Optimizing ORAM and using it efficiently for secure computation. In Emiliano De Cristofaro and Matthew Wright, editors, Privacy Enhancing Technologies, volume 7981 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 1–18. Springer, 2013
Data structures |
48753168 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enpass | Enpass | Enpass is a cross-platform offline password management app to securely store passwords and other credentials in a virtual vault locked with a master password.
The app does not store user data on its servers, but locally on their own devices, encrypted. Users can choose to synchronize their data between different devices using their own preferred cloud storage service like Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, and WebDAV.
The mobile version is restricted to storing only 25 passwords free of charge, although more functionality is available for a price. The desktop version, however, is unlimited.
In November 2017, developers stopped issuing updates on the BlackBerry platform and in December 2018, with the launch of v6, the company dropped support for Windows 10 Mobile.
In 2016, Windows Central rated Enpass as the Best App for Windows 10 Mobile, and several technology publications like Computerworld, CNET, Macworld, iMore, Android Police, Android Central, and Android Authority have included Enpass in their list of best password managers.
Features
The application features client-side encryption, using SQLCipher to encrypt its keychain file locally with a user-defined master password. It features cloud synchronization of the keychain via Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud and self-hosted WebDAV solutions such as ownCloud and Nextcloud. It features cross browser platform support and form filling for all supported platforms. It features its own integrated software keyboard for form filling on Android devices. It has password generation. Besides pin and master password, it has the functionality of unlocking the app using biometric authentication. In December 2018, Enpass 6 was released with additional features including multiple vaults and the ability to generate time-based one-time passwords for online services.
See also
List of password managers
References
External links
Software that uses Qt
Password managers
Cross-platform software
IOS software
Android (operating system) software
Universal Windows Platform apps
MacOS software |
48768665 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-malleable%20code | Non-malleable code | The notion of non-malleable codes was introduced in 2010 by Dziembowski, Pietrzak, and Wichs, for relaxing the notion of error-correction and error-detection. Informally, a code is non-malleable if the message contained in a modified code-word is either the original message, or a completely unrelated value. Non-malleable codes provide a useful and meaningful security guarantee in situations where traditional error-correction and error-detection is impossible; for example, when the attacker can completely overwrite the encoded message. Although such codes do not exist if the family of "tampering functions" F is completely unrestricted, they are known to exist for many broad tampering families F.
Background
Tampering experiment
To know the operation schema of non-malleable code, we have to have a knowledge of the basic experiment it based on. The following is the three step method of tampering experiment.
A source message is encoded via a (possibly randomized) procedure , yielding a code-word = .
The code-word is modified under some tampering-function to an erroneous-code-word =.
The erroneous-code-word is decoded using a procedure , resulting in a decoded-message = .
The tampering experiment can be used to model several interesting real-world settings, such as data transmitted over a noisy channel, or adversarial tampering of data stored in the memory of a physical device. Having this experimental base, we would like to build special encoding/decoding procedures , which give us some meaningful guarantees about the results of the above tampering experiment, for large and interesting families of tampering functions. The following are several possibilities for the type of guarantees that we may hope for.
Error correction
One very natural guarantee, called error-correction, would be to require that for any tampering function and any source-message s, the tampering experiment always produces the correct decoded message .
Error detection
A weaker guarantee, called error-detection, requires that the tampering-experiment always results in either the correct value or a special symbol indicating that tampering has been detected. This notion of error-detection is a weaker guarantee than error-correction, and achievable for larger F of tampering functions.
Algorithm description
A non-malleable code ensures that either the tampering experiment results in a correct decoded-message , or the decoded-message is completely independent of and unrelated to the source-message . In other word, the notion of non-malleability for codes is similar, in spirit, to notions of non-malleability for cryptographic primitives (such as encryption2, commitments and zero-knowledge proofs), introduced by the seminal work of Dolev, Dwork and Naor.
Compared to error correction or error detection, the "right" formalization of non-malleable codes is somewhat harder to define. Let be a random variable for the value of the decoded-message, which results when we run the tampering experiment with source-message and tampering-function , over the randomness of the encoding procedure. Intuitively, we wish to say that the distribution of is independent of the encoded message . Of course, we also want to allow for the case where the tampering experiment results in (for example, if the tampering function is identity), which clearly depends on .
Thus, we require that for every tampering-function , there exists a distribution which outputs either concrete values or a special same symbol, and faithfully models the distribution of for all in the following sense: for every source message , the distributions of and are statistically close when the symbol is interpreted as . That is, correctly simulates the "outcome" of the tampering-experiment with a function without knowing the source-messages , but it is allowed some ambiguity by outputting a same symbol to indicate that the decoded-message should be the same as the source-message, without specifying what the exact value is. The fact that depends on only and not on , shows that the outcome of is independent of , exempting equality.
Relation to error correction/detection
Notice that non-malleability is a weaker guarantee than error correction/detection; the latter ensure that any change in the code-word can be corrected or at least detected by the decoding procedure, whereas the former does allow the message to be modified, but only to an unrelated value. However, when studying error correction/detection we usually restrict ourselves to limited forms of tampering which preserve some notion of distance (e.g., usually hamming distance) between the original and tampered code-word.
For example, it is already impossible to achieve error correction/detection for the simple family of functions which, for every constant , includes a "constant" function that maps all inputs to . There is always some function in that maps everything to a valid code-word . In contrast, it is trivial to construct codes that are non-malleable w.r.t , as the output of a constant function is clearly independent of its input. The prior works on non-malleable codes show that one can construct non-malleable codes for highly complex tampering function families for which error correction/detection can not be achievable.
Application over tampering functions
Bit-wise independent tampering
As one very concrete example, we study non-malleability with respect to the family of functions which specify, for each bit of the code-word , whether to keep it as is, flip it, set it to 0, set it to 1. That is, each bit of the code-word is modified arbitrarily but independently of the value of the other bits of the code-word. We call this the “bit-wise independent tampering” family . Note that this family contains constant functions and constant-error functions as subsets. Therefore, as we have mentioned, error-correction and error-detection cannot be achieved w.r.t. this family. Nevertheless, the following can show an efficient non-malleable code for this powerful family.
With we denote the family which contains all tampering functions that tamper every bit independently. Formally, this family contains all functions that are defined by n functions (for i=1...n) as . Note that there are only 4 possible choices for each (i.e. how to modify a particular bit) and we name these “set to 0”, “set to 1”, “flip”, “keep” where the meanings should be intuitive. We call the above family the bit-wise independent tampering family.
All families of bounded size
Probabilistic Method Approach
For any "small enough" function family , there exists a (possibly inefficient) coding scheme which is non-malleable w.r.t. F. Moreover, for a fixed "small enough" function family , a random coding scheme is likely to be non-malleable w.r.t. F with overwhelming probability. Unfortunately, random coding schemes cannot be efficiently represented, nor is the encoding/decoding function likely to be efficient. Therefore, this result should merely be thought of as showing "possibility" and providing a target that we should then strive to match constructively. Moreover, this result also highlights the difference between "error-correction/detection" and "non-malleability" since a result of this form could not be true for the former notions.
Random Oracle Model Approach
It is not clear what the bound from the theorem of this type actually implies. For example, it does tell us that non-malleable codes exist with respect to all efficient functions, but this is misleading as we know that efficient non-malleable codes (and ultimately we are only interested in such) cannot be non-malleable w.r.t. this class. Nevertheless, the result by the probabilistic method does give us codes which are non-malleable w.r.t. very general classes of functions in the random oracle model.
Model of tamper-resilient security
In this model, we consider two ways of interacting with the system:
Execute(): A user can provide the system with Execute(x) queries, for , in which case the system computes , updates the state of the system to and outputs .
Tamper(): We also consider tampering attacks against the system, modeled by Tamper() commands, for functions . Upon receiving such command, the system state is set to .
An attacker that can also interact with the system via Tamper queries can potentially learn significantly more about the secret state, even recover it entirely. Therefore, we would like to have a general method for securing systems against tampering attacks, so that the ability to issue Tamper queries (at least for functions f in some large family ) cannot provide the attacker with additional information. By using non-malleable code for this purpose we have the conclusion: Let be any coding scheme which is non-malleable w.r.t , then can also be tamper-simulate w.r.t. .
Capacity of non-malleable codes
For every family with , there exist non-malleable codes against with rate arbitrarily close to 1 − (this is achieved w.h.p. by a randomized construction).
For families of size against which there is no non-malleable code of rate 1 − (in fact this is the case w.h.p for a random family of this size).
1 − is the best achievable rate for the family of functions which are only allowed to tamper the first bits of the code-word, which is of special interest.
References
Algorithms |
48818049 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin%20Spy%20Museum | Berlin Spy Museum | The Berlin Spy Museum is a private museum in Berlin which was created by former journalist Franz-Michael Günther. The museum opened to the public on the 19th of September 2015. Günther's aspirations were to create a museum devoted to the history of spies and espionage in the former spy capital of Germany. The museum is located in the central area of Potsdamer Platz, formerly known as the "death strip", as it lies on the perimeters of the wall which once divided East and West Berlin. The museum acts as an educational institution, with its permanent exhibitions bridging together centuries of espionage stories and tactics, immersing visitors in a multi-media experience. The museum particularly focuses on the World Wars and the Cold War through a range of a 1000 different exhibits and artefacts. Since its opening in 2015, 1,000,000 people have visited the museum and recently in 2020 it was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award. The Berlin Spy Museum is partnered with the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and many of the artefacts and installations within the museum have captured media attention around the world.
Main topics of the exhibitions within the museum are the following
The History of Espionage from Ancient times until the Present Age
World War I
World War II
Cryptology, Morse, Radio
Cold War (Secret services in East and West Germany)
Spy Gear
Spy Training
Listening Devices
Spy Cameras
Animals Used as Spies e.g. pigeons
Conspiracy Theories and Espionage (RAF-Stasi Connection / The Case Uwe Barschel)
Glienicke Bridge (Spy exchanges)
Secret Services and Poison
007 – Espionage in Movies
Double Agents
Secret Service Operations
Espionage in Present and Future
Curator of the Museum: Franz-Michael Günther
Prior to his creation of the Berlin Spy Museum, Franz-Michael Günther worked as a television journalist reporting on the war on terror which was a campaign to eliminate terrorism following the September 11 attacks. During his research Günther had an unexpected encounter with the East German Stasi under Communism which inspired him to discover more about the pre-history of spies. From 2004, Günther's passion for spying expanded, resulting in him collecting and planning the creation of the Berlin spy museum. Günther collected historically significant artefacts from former secret service workers and contemporary witnesses to create a museum dedicated to spying and espionage, which was once at the city of Berlin's centre. The museum creates an educational experience for visitors and aims to demonstrate an objective, non-biased perspective of espionage throughout history.
History and creation of the Museum
Site of the museum
Before its construction, many sites for the Berlin Spy Museum were considered such as the famous Hackeschen Höfe, the Forum Museumsinsel (also known as Museum Island) and the Prinzessinnenpalais Unter den Linden. Günther's final decision on the location of the museum was in the city centre of Berlin at Leipziger Platz, as “no place symbolises the Cold War more than Berlin”. Located on the previous division between East and West Berlin, the museum is positioned in a popular spot, surrounded by other tourist destinations like the Martin-Gropius-Bau, the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, the Bundesrat of Germany, Topography of Terrors and the Kulturforum with the Philharmonie and Neuer Nationalgalerie.
Architecture
The museums original building was constructed for a logistics company. After the building was bought, serious renovations needed to be completed to it in order for it to turn into a museum. The architecture of the museum was designed by Frank Wittmer and was inspired by the Glienicker Bridge, which ran over the Havel River, bordering East and West Berlin. The Glienicker Bridge was a crucial location during the Cold War as it was used to exchange spies from East and West Germany, becoming known as "the bridge of spies". Following renovations, the museum opened on the 19th September 2015, 25 years after the end of the Cold War. Shortly after the museums opening, the business encountered some financial issues with its innovative funding model, resulting in its temporary closure. After some careful planning to improve the financial concept of the museum, it reopened on 29 July 2016 as the "German Spy Museum".
The history of spies during the Cold War
Spying during the Cold War
The Berlin Spy Museum is focused on major historical events such as the building of the Berlin Wall and the Berlin Blockade. The Museum has a number of exhibits, installations and artefacts about such events. Spying has been around since ancient times including in the Cold War, “if the Great War belonged to the soldier in the trenches, the Cold War surely belonged to the spy”. The notion of spying involves "entering an opponent’s zone under false pretences to get information". In 1945, the city of Berlin was split between the NATO powers and the USSR, making it a frontier for the Cold War and eventually becoming known as the international capital of espionage. Owing to the continuous growth of arsenal between the two superpowers during the Cold War, there was an aim to move towards a more peaceful and secure world. The Cold War was not a traditional war in the sense of guns and weapons. It used spies and espionage as a method of "indirect war". The Cold War saw old warfare tactics being substituted with modernised tactics and technologies such as spying and nuclear weapons. Information and knowledge became the most important and resourceful weapon during the Cold War, which led to the creation of sophisticated methods of spying such as Operation Gold. Operation Gold involved the British and American intelligence organisations creating tunnels underneath the soviet occupied zone of East Berlin to try and tap into their telephone wires and gather information on the enemy.
The Stasi
The State Security Service called the "Stasi" emerged in the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949. The Stasi was a secret police organisation that closely monitored the activity of their citizens, and other states. In order to assert their power and dominance in the GDR, the Stasi used a vast network of civilians to spy on each other in order to collect information on suspects. By the 1950s the Stasi had developed a huge network of 274,000 employed spies and agents.
Berlin in the Cold War
Berlin was considered "the most valuable base in the world for espionage against the Soviet Bloc until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961". Half of the British Secret Intelligence Service (M16) total strength was concentrated in Berlin at the end of the 1950s. The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 was built to stop the migration wave from Socialism to Capitalism. Following the construction of the Berlin Wall espionage became more difficult for spies who formerly travelled from East to West Berlin to gather information, resulting in them having to modernise their espionage tactics to use a more technical approach. The construction of the Berlin Wall also initiated the Berlin Blockade which saw the USSR, in June 1948, cut off resources entering the western half of Berlin (Van Tonder 2017). In response to this, the US flew cargo plans with resources over the Berlin Wall to sustain the city.
Exhibitions
The museum was designed to educate its visitors through its hands-on, interactive exhibits in the 3.000 m2 (32.000 sq ft) exhibition space. The exhibitions within the museum were designed by Bänfer Kartenbeck. Garamantis and Arts Electronica companies helped create and conceive the leading edge and high-tech multimedia exhibits and interactive models in the museum.
The exhibits are positioned in chronological order, creating a physical timeline that visitors can walk through, beginning with secret scriptures from antiquity and ending with the recent NSA debate. The 10-meter long timeline creates a grand introduction for visitors through presenting the historical developments of spying from ancient Egypt all the way up until WW1. Secret agents and coding belong to some of the oldest professions in the world which is displayed through the exhibits on the cipher technique invented by Julius Caesar, and the secret service methods of Oliver Cromwell. Visitors can also read about personal stories from witnesses, such as the murder of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 with a poisoned umbrella.
The entrance to the museum has security cameras peering down on the visitors, setting the scene for the entire facility as substantive focus of the exhibition is on data acquisition in the Internet Age. These security cameras highlight the issue of surveillance, data and security which effects every individual in the modern world of the 21st century. Interactive activities in the museum have the ability to stimulate visitors’ senses so that they feel fully immersed in the experience.
Garamantis
Garamantis is a business that was founded in Berlin in 2014 by a group of software developers. Garamantis designs and invents interactive installations like the multi-touch scanner table and the interactive multi-touch display case which are used in the Berlin Spy Museum. The business aims to create leading edge technology in order to modernise museums in the digital age. Creating digital and interactive technology in museums also enhances their prestige and allows them to appeal to a wider audience.
Garamantis invented all the interactive technologies and a software system for the Berlin Spy Museum, in collaboration with designs from arts electronica. The high-tech designs are displayed on 200 screens throughout the museum. The museum contains a large display-wall called the "Spy Watch" that plays more than 150 videos simultaneously
As curator of the museum, Franz-Michael Günther decision to collaborate with Garamantis to create the museum allowed his complex vision to be created. Günther said "Garamantis’s ideas and networks, like the interactive display cases, have opened up new and innovative ways of presentation for our exhibition concept" resulting in their designs becoming a part of the permanent exhibition.
Multimedia activities
The Multimedia activities in the museum are presented on 200 different HD-screens and projections. The museum holds a range of activities that involve guests both physically and intellectually such as:
Morse code stations which are positioned in the WWI section of the museum and allows visitors to send secret messages through Morse code.
Encoding and decoding messages through the rotor-based cipher machine Enigma. Visitors are able to communicate and decipher codes with other guests, whilst also learning about the history of these old type writers.
Quiz stations which test the visitor's knowledge of spying and conspiracy theories.
Facebook puzzles which expose how much information Facebook beholds on its users and what happens with our information. Visitors can also check the security of their passwords through a Password Hacker that tests the strength of a user's password.
Hands on exhibits
Bug detectors: visitors are put under a time limit to try and find listening devices in a room using a bug detector. A replica of an office is created to try make the activity as real as possible.
Laser maze: visitors become physically tested through the laser maze obstacle course. The tricky course relates to the challenges many spies are faced with in spy films. Visitors are able to try to complete the course themselves through finding the most efficient way through the laser maze without touching a light beam. Spectators can watch other visitors of the museum manage their way through the maze via thermal imaging cameras and motion detectors.
Reconstructing files: visitors piece back bits of a puzzle to try and make sense of destroyed documents
Artifacts
Original artifacts have been collected over the years and realistic replicas have been created to expose visitors to methods and tactics used by spies and secret services throughout history. The artefacts were sourced by the curators and historians of the museum, with many of the replicas being collected form the props used in James Bond films. The Berlin Spy Museum has accumulated a collection of artefacts, particularly on WWII and the Cold War:
'Fialka' the Russian cipher machine
The Fialka is an electro-mechanical rotor cipher machine created by the USSR in the 1950s and was used during the Cold War. Most of the machines have been destroyed, but one of the remaining Fialkas is on display at the Berlin Spy Museum. The Fialka encrypts and decodes messages written in Cyrillic onto paper. The cipher machine is similar to the Enigma device that was used to protect commercial, diplomatic and military communication during World War II. The design of the Fialka is largely based on the Enigma design, although the Fialka exposes some of Enigma's flaws and weaknesses.
Bulgarian Umbrella
Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian writer and critic of communism. On the 7th of September, 1978 the author believed he was shot with poison in London by a man with an umbrella who was associated with the KGB. In hospital doctors found a small metallic pellet containing the poison ‘ricin’ in Markov's right thigh which was the cause of his death. However, following further research it was discovered that Markov was not killed via the ‘Bulgarian umbrella’ but the poison was injected into him via a smaller murder weapon. A reconstruction of this killer umbrella is displayed at the Berlin Spy Museum. This event caused a climax in the secret intelligence operations during the Cold War, with the ‘Bulgarian Umbrella’ turning into a "synonym for cold-blooded, well-organized, and deadly operations, particularly those associated with socialist state security services".
Odour capture
The odour capture was a technique to capture and trace individuals via their smell. This technique was used by the Stasi during the Cold War as an investigative tool to establish an opponents identity. One of these odour jar artefacts is on display in the Berlin Spy Museum. The odour jars are often labelled with information such as GK (the abbreviation for Geruchskonserve meaning “odour sample”), the date and time the sample was taken and the name of the person it belongs. In 1979 the Stasi began to archive hundreds of "suspected political dissidents" smells through collecting their odours on materials such as clothing and storing them in air-tight jars. The Stasi eventually built an extensive scent archives in the belief that individual's odours could be preserved and that trained canine noses could detect them. Odours were captured in a number of ways by the Stasi, for example from the cars or houses of suspected individuals, or from crime scenes.
Enigma
The Enigma machine was the most famous encryption machine of World War II. The encoding device was invented in 1918 by the German, Dr. Arthur Scherbius. The Enigma machine resembled the construction of an old school typewriter, but had a series of rotors and wheels that could be changed to encode messages in 150 different ways. The German cipher machine was predominantly used throughout World War II to encrypt communications. Unknown to the Germans, the allies were able to decrypt and read the messages, but they continued to update and improve the Enigma machine in the belief that it would be more secure. One of the models of the Enigma machine, initially used by the German military, can be viewed in the museum.
For further reading
Espionage
Cold War
Stasi
Berlin Blockade
References
External links
Website of the Spy Museum Berlin
Museums in Berlin
2015 establishments in Germany
Intelligence agencies
Cold War
Museums established in 2015
Espionage museums |
48833157 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market%20for%20zero-day%20exploits | Market for zero-day exploits | The market for zero-day exploits refers to the commercial activity that happens around the trafficking of software exploits.
Introduction
Software vulnerabilities and "exploits" are used to get remote access to both stored information and information generated in real time. When most people use the same software, as is the case in most of countries today given the monopolistic nature of internet content and service providers, one specific vulnerability can be used against thousands if not millions of people. In this context, criminals have become interested in such vulnerabilities. A 2014 report from McAfee's Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the cost of cybercrime and cyberespionage is somewhere around $160 billion per year. Worldwide, countries have appointed public institutions to deal with this issue, but they will likely conflict with the interest of their own government to access people's information in order to prevent crime. As a result, both national security agencies and criminals hide certain software vulnerabilities from both users and the original developer. This type of vulnerability is known as a zero-day exploit.
Much has been said in academia and regular media about the regulation of zero-day exploits in the market. However, it is very difficult to reach a consensus because most definitions for zero-day exploits are rather vague or not applicable, as one can only define the use of certain software as malware after it has been used. In addition, there is a conflict of interest within the operations of the state that could prevent a regulation that can make mandatory the disclosure of zero-days. Governments face a trade-off between protecting their citizens' privacy through the reporting of vulnerabilities to private companies on one hand and undermining the communication technologies used by their targets—who also threaten the security of the public—on the other. The protection of national security through exploitation of software vulnerabilities unknown to both companies and the public is an ultimate resource for security agencies but also compromises the safety of every single user because any third party, including criminal organizations, could be making use of the same resource. Hence, only users and private firms have incentives to minimize the risks associated with zero-day exploits; the former to avoid an invasion of privacy and the latter to reduce the costs of data breaches. These include legal processes, costs related to the development of solutions to fix or "patch" the original vulnerability in the software and costs associated with the loss of confidence of clients in the product.
Description
Ablon, Libicki and Golay have explained to a great extent the inner workings of the zero-day market. The main findings can be separated into five components: Commodity, Currency, Marketplace, Supply and Demand. These components and their relationship with pricing will be described. The definition given to the demand component will also be challenged because it is paramount to understand the nature of the markets (i.e. white, gray and black) and its regulation or lack thereof.
Commodity
Exploits are digital products, which means that they are information goods with near-zero marginal production costs. However, they are atypical information goods. Unlike e-books or digital videos, they do not lose their value because they are easy to replicate but due to the fact that once they are exposed, the original developer will "patch" the vulnerability, decreasing the value of the commodity.
The value will not go to zero for two reasons: (1) the distribution of the patch is asymmetric and (2) developers could use the original bug to create a variant at a decreased cost. They are also atypical because they are time-sensitive commodities. Companies are updating their software on a regular basis and a patch is only useful during the lapse between versions; sometimes a vulnerability can be corrected without any external report. Third, even in confidential transactions, the use of the exploit itself can create a dysfunction on the user-end, exposing the vulnerability and leading to its loss of value. In this sense, exploits are non-excludable but they can or can not be non-rivalrous.
Currency
In most cases, transactions are typically designed to protect the identity of at least one of the parties involved in the exchange. While this is dependent on the type of market—white markets can use traceable money—most purchases are made with stolen digital funds (credit cards) and cryptocurrencies. While the latter has been the dominant trend in the last few years, prices in the gray market are set in dollars, as shown by the leaks of Hacking Team's email archive.
Marketplace
Classically, black markets—like illegal weapons or narcotics—require a huge network of trusted parties to perform the transactions of deal-making, document forgery, financial transfers and illicit transport, among others. As it is very difficult to enforce any legal agreement within these networks, many criminal organizations recruit members close to home. This proximity element increases the cost of transaction as more intermediaries are required for transnational transactions, decreasing the overall profit of the original seller.
Zero-days, on the other hand, are virtual products and can be easily sold without intermediaries over the internet as available technologies are strong enough to provide anonymity at a very low cost. Even if there is a need for intermediaries, "unwitting data mules" can be used to avoid any evidence of wrongdoing. This is why the black market is so lucrative compared to gray markets. Gray markets, which involve transactions with public institutions in charge of national security, usually require the use of third parties to hide the traces of their transactions. The Hacking Team archive, for example, contains alleged contracts with the Ecuadorian National Secretariat of Intelligence where they used two intermediaries: Robotec and Theola. In the same archive, it is said that third-party companies Cicom and Robotec negotiated the contracts on behalf of the FBI and DEA respectively. It is less likely that white markets face the same problem as it is not in their interest to hide the transaction, it is quite the opposite because companies actively promote the use of their new patches.
Supply
The supply chain is complex and involves multiple actors organized by hierarchies, where administrators sit at the top, followed by the technical experts. Next are intermediaries, brokers and vendors which can or can not be sophisticated, finally followed by witting mules. Within this chain of command, one can find multiple products. While zero-day exploits can be "found" or developed by subject matter experts only, other exploits can be easily commercialized by almost any person willing to enter the black market. There are two reasons for this. First, some devices use outdated or deprecated software and can be easily targeted by exploits that otherwise would be completely useless. Second, these "half-day exploits" can be used through graphical interfaces and learned through freely available tutorials, which means that very little expertise is required to enter the market as a seller.
The coexistence of zero-day and half-day markets influences the resilience of the black market, as developers keep moving towards the more sophisticated end. While take-downs on high organized crime has increased, the suppliers are easily replaced with people in lower levels of the pyramid. It can take less than a day to find a new provider after a take-down operation that can easily last months.
Getting to the top, however, requires personal connections and a good reputation, in this the digital black market is no different from the physical one. Half-day exploits are usually traded in more easily accessible places but zero-days often require "double-blind" auctions and the use of multiple layers of encryption to evade law enforcement. This can not be done in forums or boards, hence these transactions occur in extremely vetted spaces.
Demand
Who buys zero-day exploits defines the kind of market we are dealing with. Afidler differentiates between white, gray and black markets following the market-sizing methodology from Harvard Business School as a guide. Here they differentiate between white markets, gray markets and black markets.
White markets are those where the original developers reward security researchers for reporting vulnerabilities. On average, prices reported until 2014 were less than ten thousands of dollars but special offers up to $100,000 were made to certain vulnerabilities based on the type, criticality, and nature of the affected software. Fourteen percent of all Microsoft, Apple and Adobe vulnerabilities in the past ten years came through white market programs.
Criminals buy in the black market; however, governments can be occasional buyers if their offer can not be satisfied in the gray market or if they find impediments to acquire zero-days due to international regulations. Hacking Team states in their website that they "do not sell products to governments or to countries blacklisted by the U.S., EU, UN, NATO or ASEAN", although they have been found infringing their own policy. Prices are usually 10–100 times higher in this market when compared to the white market and this changes depending on the location of the buyer; The United States being the place where the best prices are offered. Potential sellers which are not allowed to sell in specific territories, like Cuba and North Korea in the case of the U.S., are likely to operate in the black market as well.
Gray markets buyers include clients from the private sector, governments and brokers who resell vulnerabilities. The information regarding these markets is only available through requests of confidential information from governments, where the price is usually redacted for safety purposes, and information leaked from both national security agencies and private companies (i.e. FinFisher and Hacking Team).
Tsyrklevich reported on the transactions made by Hacking Team. To date, this represents the best evidence available on the inner workings of the gray market. However, it is likely to be the case that some of these procedures are applied in both white and black markets as well:
Controversies
Typically the parties opposed to gray markets are the retailers of the item in the market as it damages its profits and reputation. As a result, they usually pressure the original manufacturer to adjust the official channels of distribution. The state also plays an important role enforcing penalties in the case of law infringement. However, the zero-day exploit market is atypical and the way it operates is closer to the workings of the black market. Brokers and bounty programs, which could be seen as retailers of zero-days, have no control whatsoever on the original producers of the "bad" as they are independently discovered by different, and often anonymous, actors. It is not in their interest to change the channel of distribution as they can profit from both the white and gray markets, having much less risk in the former.
States, which usually complement the labour of the original manufacturers to restrict gray markets, play a different role in the zero-day market as they are regular purchasers of exploits. Given the secretive nature of information security, it is not in their interest to disclose information on software vulnerabilities as their interest is, in this case, aligned with that of the criminals who seek to infiltrate devices and acquire information of specific targets. It can be argued that the presence of intelligence agencies as consumers of this "bad" could increase the price of zero-days even further as legitimate markets provide bargaining power to black-market sellers.
Finally, private companies are unwilling to raise the prices of their rewards to those levels reached in the gray and black markets arguing that they are not sustainable for defensive markets. Previous studies have shown that reward programs are more cost-effective for private firms as compared to hiring in-house security researchers, but if the prize of rewards keeps increasing that might not be the case anymore.
In 2015, Zerodium, a new start-up focused on the acquisition of "high-risk vulnerabilities", announced their new bounty program. They published the formats required for vulnerability submissions, their criteria to determine prices—the popularity and complexity of the affected software, and the quality of the submitted exploit—and the prices themselves. This represents a mixture of the transparency offered by traditional vulnerability reward program and the high rewards offered in the gray and black markets. Software developer companies perceived this new approach as a threat, primarily due to the fact that very high bounties could cause developer and tester employees to leave their day jobs. Its effects on the market, however, are yet to be defined.
The NSA was criticized for buying up and stockpiling zero-day vulnerabilities, keeping them secret and developing mainly offensive capabilities instead of helping patch vulnerabilities.
See also
Bug bounty program
Cybercrime
Cybercrime countermeasures
Cyber-arms industry
Duqu
Mass surveillance industry
stuxnet
Surveillance capitalism
Proactive cyber defense
References
Hacking (computer security)
Cybercrime
Darknet markets
Cyberwarfare
Cyberpunk themes
Retail markets
Mass surveillance
Information economy |
48858619 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%20in%20the%20United%20States | 2016 in the United States | Events in the year 2016 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Barack Obama (D-Illinois)
Vice President: Joe Biden (D-Delaware)
Chief Justice: John Roberts (New York)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin)
Senate Majority Leader: Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)
Congress: 114th
Events
January
January 1The following laws go into effect:
Hawaii becomes the first state to raise the legal smoking age to 21.
Texas allows the open carry of guns in public places.
Tennessee launches the nation's first statewide registry of animal abusers.
Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County, Maryland, ban the storage of food in Styrofoam containers.
January 2–26The 3 Percenters and several other armed militia organizations take over the headquarters of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, in a series of incidents stemming from the 2014 Bundy standoff. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ends the occupation with a shootout, killing one militiaman and arresting five others, including leader Ammon Bundy.
January 5President Obama introduces executive orders to expand the enforcement of federal gun laws.
January 6 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes the highest-grossing film in North America, beating previous record-holder Avatar lifetime gross of $760 million in just 20 days of release.
January 8The Obama administration announces an alliance with tech companies—including Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter—to block the recruitment of Americans to Islamic extremist groups, specifically the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), via social media.
January 9For the first time in its history, the national Powerball lottery prize surpasses $1 billion.
January 1073rd Golden Globe Awards: The Revenant wins the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, with Leonardo DiCaprio winning the award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and Alejandro G. Iñárritu winning Best Director. The Martian wins the award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Matt Damon wins Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Brie Larson wins Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for Room, and Jennifer Lawrence wins Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Joy. Mr. Robot wins Best Television Series – Drama; Mozart in the Jungle wins Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy; and Wolf Hall wins Best Miniseries or Television Film.
January 12President Obama gives his final State of the Union Address to the 114th United States Congress.
January 14The nominees for the 88th Academy Awards are announced at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. The nominees for Best Picture are The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, and Spotlight. The nominees are criticized for their lack of diversity, resulting in boycotts by celebrities like Will Smith and Spike Lee, an official motion by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to increase diversity in its membership, and calls for comedian Chris Rock to step down as host.
January 15Myloh Jaqory Mason, a fugitive on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, is arrested in Thornton, Colorado, after being added to the list on December 17, 2015, for two bank robberies and two attempted murders.
January 16
President Obama announces a federal state of emergency in Flint, Michigan, allowing additional support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security in response to the ongoing contamination of tap water in the city.
The United States lifts several economic sanctions against Iran in accordance with a multinational agreement made in July 2014 concerning Iran's nuclear program. Sanctions concerning Iran's human rights abuses, missile activity, and support for terrorism remain in effect.
January 21A crippling winter storm hits the central and eastern United States, producing several feet of snow and ice (as well as strong winds and tornadoes in some areas) and killing 55 people.
January 25A Texas grand jury finds no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood after a series of undercover videos made by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), an anti-abortion organization, purported to show Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal tissue and organs. The grand jury indicts CMP founder David Daleiden and another videographer.
January 30During a brawl between rival motorcycle clubs, gunfire and stabbings kill one person and injure seven at the National Western Complex in Denver, Colorado.
February
February 1
The February 2016 North American storm complex causes power outages for more than 70,000 people in Southern California.
The Iowa caucuses are held, beginning the Democratic and Republican nomination processes for the 2016 presidential election. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wins the Republican caucuses, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic caucuses. After poor showings in Iowa, Democratic candidate Martin O'Malley and Republican candidate Mike Huckabee suspend their campaigns.
February 3Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) suspend their presidential candidacies.
Barack Obama becomes the first U.S. president to visit a U.S. mosque in Baltimore, Maryland.
February 4Six people are found dead, five from stab wounds and one from gunshot wounds, at a house in Chicago.
February 7
Super Bowl 50 is played at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. The Denver Broncos defeat the Carolina Panthers by a score of 24–10.
February 9The New Hampshire primaries are held. Donald Trump wins the Republican primary, and Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic primary.
February 10New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina suspend their campaigns for the Republican nomination.
February 12Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore suspends his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
February 13Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies at the age of 79.
February 14The 2016 North American cold wave causes record low temperatures in New England.
February 1558th Annual Grammy Awards: "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars, wins the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Taylor Swift wins Album of the Year for 1989, Meghan Trainor wins Best New Artist, and Song of the Year is awarded to "Thinking Out Loud", by Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge.
February 18106-year old civil rights activist, Virginia McLaurin, visits Barack Obama at the White House, becoming the oldest known-person and first centenarian to the visit the White House.
February 20A man kills six people and injures two in Kalamazoo, Michigan, before being apprehended by the police.
February 21Denny Hamlin wins the Daytona 500 in the closest finish in the race's 58-year history, beating Martin Truex Jr. by 11 thousandths of a second.
February 25A disgruntled former employee opens fire in an office building in Hesston, Kansas, killing three people and injuring fourteen others.
February 27Three people are stabbed at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim, California, and several people are arrested.
February 2888th Academy Awards: The ceremony, hosted by Chris Rock, is held at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Tom McCarthy's Spotlight wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Leonardo DiCaprio wins Best Actor for his performance in The Revenant, his first acting Oscar in five nominations. Brie Larson wins Best Actress for her performance in Room, her first acting Oscar and first nomination. Alejandro G. Iñárritu wins his second Best Director award for The Revenant, becoming the first director to win back-to-back Oscars since Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1949 and 1950. George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road wins six awards, the most for the evening. The telecast garners over 34.4 million viewers.
February 29H2, History's secondary network, becomes Viceland, a lifestyle channel aimed at millennials which will include programming about music, cooking, sports, technology and hard-hitting documentaries. The change comes after A&E Networks purchased a 10% stake in Vice Media, Inc. in August 2014.
March
March 1Super Tuesday: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each win seven states on the Democratic and Republican sides, respectively. In the Democratic primaries, Clinton takes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia; Bernie Sanders takes Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont. In the Republican primaries, Trump wins Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia; Ted Cruz wins Alaska, Oklahoma, and Texas; and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) wins Minnesota.
March 4
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson suspends his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Walt Disney Animation Studios' 55th feature film, Zootopia, is released in theatres to acclaim as the studio's most critically well-received film since 1994's The Lion King. It is, at that point, Disney's second-most commercially successful animated film behind 2013's Frozen and the second to cross the billion-dollar mark.
March 9
Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, is arrested on suspicion of killing five men in a shooting spree.
The death toll in the country's largest outbreak of Elizabethkingia meningoseptica rises to 18 in Wisconsin, with 44 more infected.
Six people are killed and three others injured in a mass shooting at a house in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
March 11At least four people are injured and five are arrested in Chicago when protesters demonstrating against Donald Trump scuffle with Trump supporters at a canceled Trump rally.
March 14Abu Omar al-Shishani, a commander for the Islamic State, dies after being wounded in a U.S. airstrike near Al-Shaddadah, Syria, on March 4.
March 15Marco Rubio suspends his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination after losing the primary in his home state, Florida.
March 16President Obama nominates Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
March 21President Obama lands in Cuba for a meeting with Cuban President Raúl Castro, becoming the first U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928.
March 25Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, directed by Zack Snyder, is released as the second film in the DC Extended Universe and a follow-up to 2013's Man of Steel. An extended cut, dubbed the "Ultimate Edition", is later released digitally on June 28.
March 28
The Department of Justice announces that it has unlocked the iPhone of a suspect in the 2015 San Bernardino attack without the help of Apple, after a heated public debate over the department's handling of encryption software in counter-terrorism efforts.
The United States Capitol is placed under lockdown after a man opens fire near the Capitol Visitor Center. The suspect is shot by police and taken into custody.
March 31 – April 1The 2016 Nuclear Security Summit is held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., with 58 participants in attendance. It is the fourth edition of the conference, following the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit.
April
April 2
A coalition of progressive groups begins a ten-day march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., with the goal of revealing corruption in campaign finance and "rigged voting laws". The group also demands a Senate hearing on President Obama's Supreme Court nomination. Participants include political commentator Cenk Uygur, actress Rosario Dawson, law professor Lawrence Lessig, and Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. As of April 18, more than 1,200 protesters had been arrested.
The United States Air Force deploys twelve F-15 Eagles and 350 personnel to Iceland and the Netherlands to deter further Russian aggression in Europe.
A Lancair IV monoplane crashes into a parked car along a highway 50 miles north of San Diego, injuring five people and killing one.
April 3An Amtrak passenger train on the Palmetto route, traveling from New York City to Savannah, Georgia, with 341 passengers and seven crew members on board, derails in Chester, Pennsylvania, after striking a backhoe on the tracks, injuring 35 and killing two.
April 4The Villanova Wildcats defeat the North Carolina Tar Heels, 77–74, in the NCAA Men's Championship.
April 5
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Allergan terminate a planned $160 billion merger because of the Obama administration's new regulations on tax inversion. Pfizer will have to pay $400 million to Allergan for expenses in relation to the deal.
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signs a bill allowing private businesses and religious groups to deny services to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The law is later blocked, pending appeal, by a federal judge.
The Connecticut Huskies defeat the Syracuse Orange, 82–51, in the NCAA Women's Championship.
The Wisconsin primaries are held. Ted Cruz beats Donald Trump and Ohio Governor John Kasich to win the Republican race. Bernie Sanders defeats Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race.
April 7 – Fox's American Idol concludes its 15-season run, with Trent Harmon being declared the final winner.
April 8
An airman shoots and kills a squadron commander and then himself at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Bernie Sanders accepts an invitation by Pope Francis to visit the Vatican, becoming the first American presidential candidate to receive such an invitation.
SpaceX successfully launches its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station, and lands its reusable main-stage booster on an autonomous spaceport drone ship.
April 9The United States Air Force deploys B-52 bombers to Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, to join the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
April 11John Kerry becomes the first Secretary of State to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where he and other Group of Seven (G7) members lay wreaths. Before Kerry's trip, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-California)—then the Speaker of the House of Representatives—was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the memorial.
April 12Two unarmed Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jets fly simulated attacks against the U.S. Navy destroyer Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. Later, a Russian Kamov Ka-27 naval helicopter is seen making seven passes around the warship while taking pictures.
April 13
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signs an order banning discrimination against the LGBT community. The order reverses the policies of his predecessor, Bobby Jindal, who signed laws limiting same-sex marriage and the ability of transgender people to use the public restrooms of their choice.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that the Zika virus causes birth defects.
Kobe Bryant plays his final NBA game for the Los Angeles Lakers. Bryant, who played his entire 20-year career with the Lakers, sets a new points record for a final game, scoring 60 against the Utah Jazz.
April 14
The top pick for the WNBA draft is UConn's Breanna Stewart, followed by her teammates Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck. This is the first time in any major North American sports draft that a single school produced the top three selections.
Microsoft files a lawsuit against the United States, stating that it has been prevented from disclosing information to its customers when the government obtains a warrant to read emails or access data through the cloud.
A Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet intercepts and threatens a U.S. Air Force Boeing RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.
April 18
2016 Pulitzer Prizes: The Associated Press wins the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and the Los Angeles Times wins the Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting. Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Severe flooding in Houston, Texas, causes damage to 1,000 homes, leaves 147,000 residents without power, and kills eight people.
The 120th Boston Marathon is held with 30,000 runners. Ethiopian runners Lemi Berhanu Hayle and Atsede Baysa win the marathon.
April 19The New York primary is held, with Donald Trump winning the Republican race and Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic race.
April 20
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew announces that former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill.
Four people are killed when a small plane crashes in Anchorage, Alaska.
CIA programmer Joshua Schulte allegedly stole backup files from a program called Confluence prior to the program's hacking tools being leaked.
April 21 – Music legend Prince dies at the age of 57. To celebrate his legacy, cities across the U.S. hold vigils and light buildings, bridges, and other venues in purple.
April 22
Eight family members are shot to death at four locations in Pike County, Ohio. Three children survive the attacks.
Five people are killed in two separate shootings in Appling, Georgia.
April 25
John Kasich and Ted Cruz announce that they will coordinate strategies to stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination: Kasich's campaign will ensure Cruz a "clear path" in Indiana, while Cruz's campaign will cut campaigning in New Mexico and Oregon.
A court settlement calls for the city of Cleveland, Ohio, to pay $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by two police officers in November 2014 after his toy gun was mistaken for a real one.
CRF Frozen Foods recalls more than 300 products.
April 26Super Tuesday III: Donald Trump wins all five states holding Republican primaries (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island). In the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton takes Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, while Bernie Sanders takes Rhode Island.
April 27
The bodies of American climber Alex Lowe and photographer David Bridges, who were killed and buried during an avalanche in 1999, are discovered on the Himalayan mountain Shishapangma.
Dennis Hastert, a former Speaker of the House, is sentenced to 15 months in prison for breaking banking laws through the payment of "hush money" to victims whom he had sexually abused.
Ted Cruz announces that Carly Fiorina will be his running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.
April 28Comcast's NBCUniversal purchases DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion.
April 29
The United States Air Force lands two F-22 Raptors in Lithuania for the first time in a show of support for Lithuania and surrounding countries, which have been worried over Russia's involvement in Ukraine.
China denies a Hong Kong port call from Carrier Strike Group 3, which includes the and other escorting vessels.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the first U.S.-related death from the Zika virus, an elderly man in Puerto Rico.
April 30
President Obama attends his final White House Correspondents' Dinner, where comedian Larry Wilmore is the featured performer.
Six people are killed in a car crash on Interstate 95 in Jupiter, Florida.
May
May 1
A cruise ship sets sail from Miami to Havana, Cuba, with more than 700 passengers on board, becoming the first in more than half a century to make the trip. The ship, Carnival Cruise Line's Adonia, was able to depart after a policy banning Cuban-born citizens from returning to the United States by sea was loosened. It docks in Havana on May 2.
May Day: Protesters in Seattle begin to riot and attack law enforcement, injuring five police officers. Nine people are arrested.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus officially retires its elephants after a final show in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava in New York City is almost destroyed in a four-alarm fire.
Fourteen of 175 cars of a CSX freight train derail in Washington, D.C., leaking three chemicals that are deemed hazardous to the public.
May 2 – The Loud House premieres on Nickelodeon and becomes the number-one children's animated series on television within its first month on the air.
May 3
A city bus is hijacked in Washington, D.C., and the suspect crashes it into a gas station, killing a pedestrian.
ISIL fighters ambush and kill Charles Keating IV, a Navy SEAL who was assisting Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the area. Keating is later identified as the grandson of financier Charles Keating Jr., who was known for his involvement in a 1980s savings and loan scandal. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey orders all state flags to be flown at half-staff on May 4.
The Indiana primary is held, and Donald Trump wins the Republican race.
Ted Cruz suspends his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Three people are killed in a plane crash on Long Island.
May 4
John Kasich suspends his presidential campaign, leaving Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee.
The Department of Justice informs North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory that a new state law limiting restroom access for transgender people violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It demands a response by May 9 on whether the state will correct the violations.
California raises the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 and restricts the use of electronic cigarettes in public places.
May 5A warehouse burns down during a four-alarm fire in Houston.
May 6
Three people are killed and three others injured during a two-day shooting spree in Potomac, Maryland. The suspect is believed to be a former police officer.
Captain America: Civil War, directed by the Russo brothers, is released by Marvel Studios as the 13th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the first film of its "Phase Three" slate and the sequel to 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger and 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. At release, it becomes the twelfth-highest-grossing film of all time (now the 22nd).
May 7Nyquist, ridden by Mario Gutierrez, wins the Kentucky Derby.
May 10
Three women are arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago after being caught trying to smuggle 70 pounds ($3 million worth) of opium into the U.S.
The West Virginia primary is held, with Donald Trump winning the Republican race and Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic race. Trump wins the Republican primary in Nebraska.
NASA confirms the discovery of more than 1,284 exoplanets by its Kepler space observatory.
Four people are stabbed, two of them fatally, at a home and a shopping mall in Taunton, Massachusetts. The assailant is shot and killed by an off-duty sheriff.
May 12
Susannah Mushatt Jones, the world's oldest person and the last surviving American born in the 1800s, dies in New York at age 116.
CBS cancels CSI: Cyber, the last active TV series in the CSI franchise.
May 13
The Department of Education and Department of Justice advise public school districts across the country to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, rather than the gender assigned to them at birth.
Michael Strahan makes his final appearance as co-host on Live! with Kelly and Michael.
May 14
Eight people are killed and 44 others injured after a charter bus rolls over on Route 83 north of Laredo, Texas.
A pilot is killed when his stunt plane crashes during an air show at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in DeKalb County, Georgia.
May 20 – The Angry Birds Movie is released in theaters.
May 21A U.S. airstrike kills Mullah Akhtar Mansour, leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
May 22
A skydiving tour plane crashes in Hawaii, killing five people.
The U.S. lifts its embargo on arms trade in Vietnam.
May 25An audit by the State Department Inspector General finds that Hillary Clinton violated directives from the department in her use of a private email server for government business during her time as Secretary of State. The Inspector General says that Clinton did not request approval to use the private server, and that such a request would have been denied because of security risks.
May 27
President Obama becomes the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in 1945.
A P-47 Thunderbolt crashes in the Hudson River, killing the pilot.
May 29 24-year-old rookie Alexander Rossi wins the 100th Indianapolis 500 mile race in front of a record crowd of 350,000. His car runs out of fuel coming to the finish line.
May 30Former Stanford University student Brock Turner is sentenced to six months in prison for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. The short sentence, as well as statements by Turner's parents in the following weeks, draw significant controversy.
May 31Major flooding occurs in Texas and Oklahoma.
June
June 1 – A gunman opens fire at the University of California, Los Angeles, killing an associate professor and his wife in an apparent murder–suicide.
June 3 – American boxing legend and conscientious objector Muhammad Ali dies of septic shock at a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of 74.
June 7 – The final major state primaries are held for the 2016 presidential election, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump emerging as the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican races, respectively.
June 10
President Obama formally endorses Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
22-year-old singer–songwriter Christina Grimmie is shot dead while signing autographs at a concert venue in Orlando, Florida.
June 12
29-year-old Omar Mateen opens fire at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando, killing 49 people and leaving another 53 wounded. The attack surpassed the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history until the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. The shooting is investigated as a domestic terrorist attack.
The 70th annual Tony Awards are presented, the cultural icon musical Hamilton wins 11 awards including Best Musical from a record 16 nominations. The performance of the cast of Hamilton was introduced by a filmed message from President and First Lady Obama and Chance the Rapper calling the show one of the greatest pieces of art ever made.
In the NHL, the Eastern Conference champion Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Western Conference champion San Jose Sharks in six games to win the Stanley Cup, the Penguins' fourth championship in franchise history.
June 15–16 – In response to the attack in Orlando, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) holds a filibuster for nearly fifteen hours, demanding new gun control laws from Congress. The filibuster ends when the Senate agrees to vote on two measures: one that would require universal background checks for gun sales, and another that would ban the sale of weapons to individuals on government watch lists of suspected terrorists.
June 17 – Pixar Animation Studios' 17th feature film, Finding Dory, the sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo, is released in theaters.
June 18 – A 19-year-old man is arrested after attempting to pull a gun from a policeman's holster at a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas. He later admits he was planning to use it to kill Trump.
June 19 – In the NBA, the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers defeat the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors in seven games to win their first NBA Finals title in the Cavaliers' 45-year history. It is the first major professional sports championship won by a team based in Cleveland since 1964.
June 22–23 – Members of the House Democratic Caucus, led by Representative John Lewis (D-Georgia) and Representative Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts), declare their intention to remain on the floor of the House of Representatives until its Republican Speaker, Paul Ryan, allows votes on gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting. The sit-in is staged by about 60 legislators.
June 24 – At least 23 people are killed after a huge flood hits areas of West Virginia.
June 26 – Ten people are hospitalized, five with stab wounds, after a group of counter-protesters attack a white supremacist gathering in Sacramento, California.
June 27 – In a 5–3 decision, the Supreme Court strikes down a 2013 Texas law that imposed restrictions on abortion clinics.
June 28- Pat Summitt the all-time winningest women's basketball coach in NCAA history dies of dementia at the age of 64, in Summit's 38-year coaching career with Tennessee she won 1,098 games the most of any men's or women's coach.
July
July 1
The U.S. military officially lifts its ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announces that she will leave it up to the FBI to decide whether to bring charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as Secretary of State.
Vermont's GMO labeling law goes into effect—the first in the U.S.
July 3 – The Fort Bragg Game becomes the first professional sporting event to ever be held on an active military base, and the first Major League Baseball regular season game ever held in the state of North Carolina when the Miami Marlins play the Atlanta Braves.
July 4 – Juno successfully enters the orbit of Jupiter.
July 5
Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleads guilty of the murder of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard who had abused her for many years, forcing her to use a wheelchair and to pretend to be ill. She is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Multiple cellphone video recordings capture the police shooting of Alton Sterling, a man selling CDs outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sparking wide outrage. The Department of Justice opens a federal investigation.
July 6
After FBI Director James Comey recommends against indicting Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Lynch announces that the federal investigation of Clinton will be closed with no charges.
A police officer shoots and kills 32-year-old Philando Castile during a routine traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, sparking further public outcry and protests regarding police brutality. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton requests an investigation by the Justice Department.
July 7 – During a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas, a sniper later identified as Micah Xavier Johnson opens fire, killing five Dallas police officers and injuring another eleven people in the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since September 11, 2001. Johnson is later found to have targeted white people (specifically white police officers) and to have been interested in several black nationalist groups. He is killed by a C-4 bomb delivered by a robot, the first use of lethal force by a robot by an American police department.
July 8 – Despite the conclusions of the FBI and attorney general, the State Department reopens its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
July 9 – The government of the Bahamas releases a rare advisory to Bahamian citizens traveling to the United States to be non-confrontational and cooperative with police after recent racial tensions in the country.
July 16 – Donald Trump announces Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate for the Republican ticket in the 2016 presidential election.
July 17 – Three police officers are shot dead and three others are injured in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The shooter has been killed and an investigation is underway.
July 18–21 – The Republican National convention is held in Cleveland, ohio with Donald Trump accepting the nomination.
July 22 – Hillary Clinton announces Virginia United States Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate for the Democrat ticket in the 2016 presidential election.
July 25–28 – The Democratic National Convention is held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Hillary Clinton accepting the nomination. She becomes the first woman to accept the nomination of a major party for president.
July 30
All 16 occupants of a hot air balloon are killed – the deadliest incident of its kind in U.S. history – after hitting power lines and crashing near Austin, Texas.
Skydiver Luke Aikins sets a new world record for the highest altitude jump without a parachute, falling 25,000 ft into a safety net.
July 31
The 2016 Maryland flood in Ellicott City, Maryland, caused significant damage to the historic downtown area of the municipality
Sharknado: The 4th Awakens airs for the first time on Syfy.
August
August 2 – A charter bus crashes on Highway 99 in Merced County, California, killing four people.
August 4 – A wildfire occurs in California, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
August 5 – Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, is released as the third film in the DC Extended Universe.
August 5–21 – The United States compete at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and win 46 gold, 37 silver, and 38 bronze medals.
August 7 – Caleb Schwab, the 10-year-old son of Kansas state representative Scott Schwab, is killed while riding Verrückt—the world's tallest water slide—at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas.
August 8 – A power outage causes hundreds of Delta Air Lines flights to be delayed or cancelled.
August 10 – Police in Dallas, Texas kill Tony Timpa, who suffered from schizophrenia and depression, after he asked for help. The police laughed as he asked for help 30 times while they pinned his shoulders, knees, and neck to the ground.
August 12–19 – The 2016 Louisiana floods submerge over 146,000 homes across south Louisiana, killing 13 people. The Red Cross characterized the floods as the worst natural disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and President Obama visited the Baton Rouge area to survey the damage.
August 16 – The Blue Cut Fire occurs in California, displacing more than 82,000 residents, burning over 37,000 acres (150 km2) and threatening at least 34,500 structures.
August 17–21 – The 74th World Science Fiction Convention is held at the Bartle Hall Convention Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
August 20 – The U.S. Air Force deploys the B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers in Guam to conduct exercises.
August 26 - Barack Obama expands the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, making it the world's largest marine protected area in the United States. Barack Obama surpasses Theodore Roosevelt as the most water and land protected by a U.S. president.
August 31 – The US conducts its first commercial flight to Cuba in 50 years
September
September 6 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests Israeli rabbi Aharon Goldberg and divorce mediator Shimen Liebowitz, two planners of a contract killing on an estranged Jewish man, at a hotel in Central Valley, New York.
September 10 – John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan in 1981, is released from a psychiatric hospital after 35 years.
September 11
Hillary Clinton becomes overheated and faints at a 9/11 memorial service in New York City, and is later revealed to have been diagnosed with pneumonia in the days prior.
Savvy Shields, Miss Arkansas 2016, wins the 90th Miss America pageant.
September 17
A pipe bomb explodes near a U.S. Marine Corps charity 5K run in Seaside Park, New Jersey. This is followed by an explosion in New York City that injures 29.
A man dressed in a private security company uniform stabs and wounds nine people in a St. Cloud, Minnesota mall before being shot and killed by an off-duty police officer.
September 18
Following explosions in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and Manhattan, New York, on the previous day, another explosive device was discovered at a transit station in Elizabeth. The device was accidentally detonated in the early hours of September 19 when operated on by a bomb squad robot.
The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards are held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, with Game of Thrones winning the best drama and Veep winning the best comedy.
September 19 – Ahmad Khan Rahami is identified as a suspect for the bombings in New York and New Jersey the previous two days. He is captured in a shootout.
September 21 – A state of emergency is declared in Charlotte, North Carolina, after protests over the police killings of three black men in a single week.
September 23 – A gunman opens fire at a mall in Burlington, Washington, killing 5 people. The shooter, Arcan Cetin, is arrested the next day.
September 24 – The National Museum of African-American History and Culture, the biggest museum towards black history, opens at Washington D.C.
September 26 – Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton take part in their first live televised debate, with an estimated audience of up to 100 million viewers.
September 28 – Congress votes to override President Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which would effectively allow the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their part in the attacks.
September 29 – A commuter train crashes in Hoboken, New Jersey, killing one person and injuring 114 others.
October
October 1
The New York Times publishes parts of Donald Trump's 1995 tax records, which show that he suffered a $916 million loss during that year, which would have given him the ability to avoid paying income taxes for up to 18 years. This occurs while Trump is under intense scrutiny by Hillary Clinton and other political opponents to release his current tax records as is tradition in modern presidential elections.
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary formally suspends Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore until the end of his term for directing probate judges to enforce the state's ban on same-sex marriage, which had been ruled unconstitutional in federal court.
October 6 – Hurricane Matthew strengthens to a Category Four storm as it approaches Florida.
October 7
The Obama administration accuses the government of Russia of hacking the computer network of the Democratic National Committee.
The Washington Post releases a 2005 videotape of Donald Trump making lewd comments to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about a married woman and commenting on how he can grab women "by the pussy" without repercussions because he is "a star". The comments are met with reactions of disgust and disbelief from the media and mainstream Republicans, as well as numerous Republicans rescinding their endorsements of his campaign. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan disinvites Trump from a Wisconsin campaign event in response. Trump issues an apology video online shortly after.
October 10 – Samsung announces an official discontinuation of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after reports of the phone overheating and combusting, posing a severe health risk.
October 11 – President Obama presents details of a human mission to the planet Mars.
October 15 – A firebomb is set off inside the Republican Party headquarters building in Orange County, North Carolina. No injuries are reported and a suspect has not been found.
October 21 – A currently unknown attacker launches multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks on networks operated by DNS provider Dyn, making numerous sites difficult or impossible to access for a period of time, including Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, Spotify, The New York Times, BBC News, and PayPal. The Department of Homeland Security opens an investigation.
October 27 – Seven defendants, including Ammon and Ryan Bundy, are acquitted of all federal charges by a federal jury in relation to their occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January.
October 28
FBI Director James Comey informs Congress that the bureau has chosen to reopen its investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server after discovering some emails that, while not from Clinton herself or withheld during the investigation, may be "pertinent" to the investigation. The emails were discovered on a device belonging to Anthony Weiner during an investigation into one of his sexting scandals.
36-year-old Ryan Collins is sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the 2014 hacking and distributing of numerous celebrities' nude photos.
November
November 2 – Major League Baseball: In Game 7 of the World Series, the Chicago Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians 8–7 in 10 innings, winning the Series 4–3 and claiming their first MLB title since 1908.
November 4 – Doctor Strange, directed by Scott Derrickson, is released by Marvel Studios as the 14th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
November 6 – In a second letter to Congress, FBI Director James Comey announces that the newest investigation of emails related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private server had not changed the conclusion the FBI reached in July.
November 8
The 2016 presidential election is held. Donald Trump is elected as the 45th President of the United States and Mike Pence is elected the 48th Vice President, with Trump becoming the oldest man elected president at the age of 70 as well as the first president in history to take the office without any prior political or military experience. The win is considered one of the most shocking upsets in U.S. history, with most news outlets and experts considering a Trump victory unlikely. The result is also highly controversial due to Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead of nearly 3 million votes over Trump, who won via the Electoral College.
Four states – California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts – vote to legalize the use, sale, and consumption of recreational marijuana.
Faith Spotted Eagle becomes the first Native American to receive an electoral vote.
The U.S. senate elects the most diverse cast yet. Catherine Cortez Masto becomes the first Latina senator, Kamala Harris becomes the first Asian-American, and the second black woman into the senate, and Ilhan Omar becomes the first Somali-American lawmaker.
In the 2016 Senate and House elections, the Republican Party maintains its majority of seats in Congress.
November 9 – Anti-Trump protests are held in several cities across the nation over the next week after Trump's election win.
November 10 - John Kerry makes a trip to Antarctica becoming the first Secretary of State to visit all 7 continents.
November 18 – Donald Trump agrees to pay a $25 million settlement to two class action lawsuits and a New York state civil lawsuit regarding his now defunct unlicensed Trump University.
November 20 – More than 300 people are injured, 26 seriously, after police use water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades on a peaceful protest against the proposed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
November 21 – A school bus crashes in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing at least six children and injuring another 22.
November 23 – Walt Disney Animation Studios' 56th feature film, Moana, is released in theaters to critical and commercial success. Like 2013's Frozen and Zootopia earlier in the year, it is regarded as one of the studio's strongest works since the peak of the Renaissance era.
November 25
The state elections commission of Wisconsin agrees to a statewide recount of its ballots in the 2016 presidential election after requests by Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Rocky De La Fuente.
After multiple hearings, Dylann Roof, the suspected perpetrator of the 2015 Charleston church shooting, is declared by a federal judge to be mentally competent enough to stand trial.
November 28 – Eleven people are hospitalized with injuries after 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan attacks students on the campus of Ohio State University with his car and a butcher knife before being fatally shot by police. An investigation later shows that Artan was inspired by terrorist propaganda from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
December
December 2
Donald Trump becomes the first US president or president-elect since 1979 to make direct contact with the President of Taiwan, upsetting Chinese diplomats and sparking concern over whether Trump will uphold the "One China policy" at the foundation of China-U.S. relations.
A fire at an Oakland, California warehouse, which was hosting a music event, kills at least 36 people, the deadliest fire in Oakland history.
December 4
The United States Army Corps of Engineers under the Obama administration denies the easement of the Dakota Access Pipeline through Lake Oahe in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and will look for alternative routes.
A man from Salisbury, North Carolina briefly opens fire with an AR-15 style rifle inside Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., wishing to "self-investigate" the establishment implicated in a false conspiracy theory that claims the restaurant is used by members of the Democratic Party for a child-sex ring. No injuries are reported, and the man is arrested without incident and immediately charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
December 5 – The murder trial of white police officer Michael Slager in the 2015 shooting death of Walter Scott in South Carolina ends in a mistrial after a hung jury cannot reach a verdict, resulting in no charges on Slager.
December 8 – John Glenn, former astronaut, Colonel, and Senator, and the first American to orbit the Earth, dies of presently undisclosed conditions at the OSU Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of 95.
December 9
The CIA tells U.S. legislators that the United States Intelligence Community has "high confidence" that Russia conducted operations during the 2016 presidential election to assist Donald Trump in winning the presidency. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin had orchestrated the Democratic National Committee cyber attacks. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress call for a full-scale investigation. Trump writes off the report as "ridiculous".
The Supreme Court of Michigan rejects Jill Stein's request for a recount of votes in the state, upholding Donald Trump's victory in the state.
December 12
After the recount is completed in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania rejects Jill Stein's request, both states reaffirm Donald Trump as winner of the states in the 2016 election.
Block Island Wind Farm becomes the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States.
December 14
Yahoo discloses that a data breach in 2013 compromised more than 1 billion user accounts' information, such as names, passwords, and unencrypted messages, making it the largest data breach in the history of the Internet. Yahoo already disclosed a smaller 2014 data breach in September 2016.
The Federal Reserve raises its benchmark interest rate by 0.25%, only the second increase in a decade, citing strong economic growth and rising employment, though Chairwoman Janet Yellen says the outlook for the US economy going forward is "uncertain".
December 16 - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is released in theaters.
December 19
The Electoral College elects Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, with 304 electoral votes cast for Trump versus 227 for Hillary Clinton.
North Carolina Governor-elect Roy Cooper announces that the controversial HB2 law passed in March limiting the rights of the LGBT community will be repealed.
December 20 – President Obama, in a joint agreement with Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, permanently bans oil and gas drilling in most of the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean.
December 23 – In a departure from its previous policy, the Obama administration chooses to not use its veto power and instead abstains from voting on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, allowing its passage. The resolution demands an end to the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump imply that the decision will result in a reassessment of relations with the United Nations.
December 24 – Donald Trump announces that he will be dissolving his foundation to avoid potential conflicts of interest in his presidency. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asserts that Trump will not be able to do so until an ongoing investigation into the foundation has completed.
December 27 – Carrie Fisher, known for playing the iconic character Princess Leia in the Star Wars film series, as well as being a noted script doctor and mental health advocate, dies at the age of 60 after suffering from cardiac arrest on a transatlantic flight four days earlier. Her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds dies the next day, after suffering a stroke while preparing for Fisher's funeral.
December 29 – The Obama administration imposes sanctions against the leaders of the Russian intelligence agency GRU and expels 35 Russian operatives from the United States in response to Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump urges the country "move on" from the issue, but nonetheless announces that he will be meeting with the United States Intelligence Community for an update on the situation.
December 31 – A federal judge in Texas blocks the enforcement of a policy seeking to extend Affordable Care Act anti-discrimination protections for transgender health and abortion-related services.
December 31 – United States troops withdraw from Afghanistan, leaving behind 8,400 troops stationed at 4 garrisons (Kabul, Kandahar, Bagram, and Jalalabad).
Deaths
January
January 1
Lennie Bluett, actor (born 1919)
Dale Bumpers, politician; 38th Governor of Arkansas and U.S. Senator (1975–1999) (born 1925)
Gilbert Kaplan, businessman, publisher, and amateur conductor (born 1941)
Tony Lane, graphic designer (born 1944)
John Coleman Moore, mathematician (born 1923)
Mike Oxley, politician (born 1944)
Vilmos Zsigmond, Hungarian-born cinematographer (born 1930)
January 2
Brad Fuller, video game composer and audio engineer (born 1953)
Stanley Siegel, radio reporter and talk show host (born 1936)
Frances Cress Welsing, psychiatrist and author (born 1935)
January 3
Leonard Berkowitz, social psychologist (born 1926)
Gary Flakne, politician (born 1934)
John McDade Howell, university chancellor (born 1922)
Raymond W. Lessard, Roman Catholic prelate (born 1930)
Andy Maurer, football player (born 1948)
Ted Stanley, entrepreneur and philanthropist (born 1931)
January 4
Robert Balser, animator (born 1927)
Stephen W. Bosworth, diplomat; U.S. Ambassador to South Korea (1997–2001) (born 1939)
Long John Hunter, blues musician (born 1931)
Red Parker, football coach (born 1931)
Joseph Ritz, author, playwright, and journalist (born 1929)
Leo Rucka, football player (born 1931)
January 5
Bob Armstrong, basketball player (born 1933)
Nicholas Caldwell, R&B singer and musician (born 1944)
Christine Lawrence Finney, animator and painter (born 1968)
George MacIntyre, football player and coach (born 1939)
Jay Ritchie, baseball player (born 1936)
January 6
Robert D. Acland, surgeon (born 1941)
Douglas Greer, child actor (born 1921)
Pat Harrington Jr., actor (born 1929)
Florence King, writer (born 1936)
Serena Sinclair Lesley, journalist (born 1926)
Sol Polansky, diplomat (born 1926)
Robert D. Timm, businessman and politician (born 1921)
January 7
Bill Foster, basketball coach (born 1929)
John Johnson, basketball player (born 1947)
Kitty Kallen, singer (born 1921)
Richard Libertini, actor (born 1933)
Troy Shondell, singer (born 1939)
January 8
Otis Clay, R&B and soul singer (born 1942)
Royal Parker, television personality (born 1929)
Red Simpson, singer and songwriter (born 1934)
Brett Smiley, singer and songwriter (born 1955)
January 9
Barbara Allyne Bennet, actress and union executive (born 1939)
Myra Carter, actress (born 1929)
Lawrence H. Cohn, cardiac surgeon (born 1937)
Lance Rautzhan, baseball player (born 1952)
Angus Scrimm, actor and author (born 1926)
Beau St. Clair, film producer (born 1952)
Peggy Willis-Aarnio, ballet choreographer and historian (born 1948)
January 10
David Bowie, English singer, songwriter and actor (b. 1947)
Alton Brown, baseball player (born 1925)
Ann Z. Caracristi, cryptanalyst and intelligence official (born 1921)
Charles Congden Carpenter, naturalist and herpetologist (born 1921)
Jeanne Córdova, German-born American LGBT activist and writer (born 1948)
Carolyn Denning, pediatrician (born 1927)
Michael Galeota, actor (born 1984)
Ralph Hauenstein, business and philanthropist (born 1912)
Francis Thomas Hurley, Roman Catholic prelate (born 1927)
Arthur S. Obermayer, entrepreneur and philanthropist (born 1931)
Dick Spady, restaurateur (born 1923)
January 11
Monte Irvin, baseball player (born 1919)
David Margulies, actor (born 1937)
Don Strauch, politician; Mayor of Mesa, Arizona (born 1926)
January 12
Meg Mundy, British-born American actress and model (born 1915)
Andrew Smith, basketball player (born 1990)
January 13
Luis Arroyo, baseball player (born 1927)
Lawrence Phillips, football player (born 1975)
Jim Simpson, sportscaster (born 1927)
Tera Wray, pornographic actress (born 1982)
January 14
George Carroll, American lawyer and politician (b. 1921)
James Hannah, American attorney (b. 1944)
Al Hart, American radio host (b. 1927)
Ellen Meiksins Wood, American historian (b. 1942)
January 15
Noreen Corcoran, actress and dancer (born 1943)
Dan Haggerty, actor (born 1942)
January 16
Bob Harkey, race car driver (born 1930)
Gary Loizzo, singer and musician (born 1945)
Ted Marchibroda, football player and coach (born 1931)
Lloyd Rudolph, political scientist and author (born 1927)
January 17
Blowfly, musician and producer (born 1939)
Mic Gillette, brass player (born 1951)
Ramblin' Lou Schriver, musician and broadcaster (born 1929)
January 18Glenn Frey, singer-songwriter and musician (born 1948)
January 19
Richard Levins, mathematical ecologist (born 1930)
Forrest McDonald, historian (born 1927)
William Y. Smith, general (born 1925)
Frank Sullivan, baseball player (born 1930)
January 20
Ronald Greenwald, rabbi and businessman (born 1934)
David G. Hartwell, editor, literary critic and publisher (born 1941)
Edward Yourdon, software engineer, computer consultant, author and lecturer (born 1944)
January 21
Bill Johnson, alpine skier (born 1960)
Derrick Todd Lee, serial killer (born 1968)
January 22
Tom Aidala, American architect (b. 1933)
Eugene Borowitz, American rabbi and philosopher (b. 1924)
Fred Bruney, American football player (b. 1931)
Pete Carmichael, American football coach (b. 1941)
Waymond C. Huggins, American politician (b. 1927)
Mikhail Odnoralov, Russian-born American painter (b. 1944)
Robert Pickus, American activist (b. 1923)
Sarah, American zoo cheetah (b. 2000)
Storm Flag Flying, American thoroughbred racehorse (b. 1999)
Rik Wilson, American ice hockey player (b. 1962)
January 23Marie Mahoney, baseball player (born 1924)
January 24Marvin Minsky, computer scientist (born 1927)
January 25
Thornton Dial, artist (born 1928)
Concepcion Picciotto, Spanish-born peace and social activist (born 1936)
January 26
Tommy Kelly, actor (born 1925)
Abe Vigoda, actor (born 1921)
January 27Barbara Berger, baseball player (born 1930)
January 28
Signe Toly Anderson, singer (born 1941)
Buddy Cianci, politician; 32nd and 34th Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island (born 1941)
Paul Kantner, singer and musician (born 1941)
January 30Georgia Davis Powers, civil rights activist and politician (born 1923)
February
February 1
Jon Bunch, singer-songwriter (born 1970)
Thomas Tigue, politician (born 1945)
February 2
Robert Beiner, television sports director (b. 1950)
Abram Cohen, Olympic fencer (b. 1924)
Bob Elliott, comedian and actor (born 1923)
Jim Goode, restaurateur (b. 1944)
Halling, racehorse (b. 1991)
Mike Oehler, author (b. 1937)
February 3
Joe Alaskey, voice actor (born 1952)
John P. Riley Jr., ice hockey player (born 1920)
Maurice White, singer-songwriter (born 1941)
February 4
Marlow Cook, politician; U.S. Senator (1968–1974) (born 1926)
Jimmie Haskell, composer and arranger (born 1936)
Dave Mirra, BMX rider (born 1974)
Edgar Mitchell, astronaut (born 1930)
Axl Rotten, professional wrestler (born 1971)
Edgar Whitcomb, 43rd Governor of Indiana (born 1917)
February 5
Bill Birchfield, politician and lawyer (born 1935)
Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, jurist (born 1929)
Ray Colcord, film and television composer (born 1949)
February 6
Dan Gerson, screenwriter (born 1966)
Dan Hicks, singer-songwriter (born 1941)
February 7
Andrew Glaze, poet, playwright and novelist (born 1920)
Redding Pitt, attorney and politician (b. 1944)
Thomas Rea, dermatologist and leprosy researcher (b. 1929)
February 8
Charles C. Campbell, general (born 1948)
Johnny Duncan, actor (born 1923)
February 9
Edwin McDonough, actor (b. 1943)
Donald E. Thorin, cinematographer (b. 1934)
February 10
Andrew L. Lewis Jr., 7th United States Secretary of Transportation (born 1931)
Lennie Pond, race car driver (born 1940)
Christopher Rush, illustrator (born 1965)
Richard Unis, judge (born 1928)
February 11
Philip A. Kuhn, British-born historian (born 1933)
Kevin Randleman, mixed martial artist (born 1971)
John Keith Wells, U.S. Marine platoon commander (born 1922)
February 12
Eddie Barry, ice hockey player (born 1919)
Robert Frederick Froehlke, 10th United States Secretary of the Army (born 1922)
February 13
Nathan Barksdale, drug dealer, dramatized in The Wire (born 1961)
Johnny Lattner, football player (born 1932)
Antonin Scalia, jurist; Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (born 1936)
February 14Steven Stucky, classical music composer (born 1949)
February 15
Edward T. Foote II, academic and educator; 4th President of the University of Miami (born 1937)
George Gaynes, Finnish-American actor (born 1917)
February 16
Alisa Bellettini, television producer (born 1954)
Lex McAllister, reality show contestant (born 1984)
Robert Walker, sailor (born 1929)
February 17Tony Phillips, baseball player (born 1959)
February 18
Jim Davenport, baseball player (born 1933)
Rosario Ferré, First Lady of Puerto Rico (born 1938)
Tom Mullica, magician and impressionist (born 1948)
Angela Raiola, television personality (born 1960)
John Reinhardt, diplomat; U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria (1971–1975) (born 1920)
February 19
Humbert Allen Astredo, actor (born 1929)
Harper Lee, writer (born 1926)
Charlie Tuna, radio personality (born 1944)
February 20
Kevin Collins, baseball player (born 1946)
Dave Needle, computer engineer (born 1947)
February 21Richard Horner Thompson, general (born 1926)
February 22
Wesley A. Clark, general and computer engineer (born 1927)
Sonny James, singer-songwriter (born 1928)
Cara McCollum, journalist and beauty queen (born 1992)
February 23Donald E. Williams, astronaut (born 1942)
February 25
Tony Burton, actor and comedian (born 1937)
Alfred E. Mann, entrepreneur and philanthropist (born 1925)
February 26
C. L. Blast, soul singer (b. 1934)
William Y. Cooper, artist (b. 1933)
Juan Conway McNabb, American-born Peruvian Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1925)
Robert Palladino, calligrapher and academic (b. 1932)
Robert Struble Jr., historian and author (b. 1943)
February 28
George Kennedy, actor (born 1925)
Jack Lindquist, businessman; President of Disneyland (1990–1993) (born 1927)
February 29
Stuart Beck, diplomat and law practitioner (born 1946)
Helias Doundoulakis, spy and inventor (born 1923)
Gil Hill, police officer and actor (born 1931)
Lee Reherman, actor (born 1966)
March
March 1
Martha Wright, actress and singer (born 1923)
Gayle McCormick, singer (born 1948)
Jim Kimsey, co-founder and CEO of AOL (born 1939)
Adam Dziewonski, Polish-born geophysicist (born 1936)
Coca Crystal, television personality (born 1947)
Stuart Beck, lawyer and diplomat (born 1946)
March 2
R. Tom Zuidema, Dutch-born anthropologist (born 1927)
James Barrett McNulty, 26th Mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania (born 1945)
Aubrey McClendon, businessman and part-owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder (born 1959)
Dick Hudson, football player (born 1940)
Rosemary Hinkfuss, politician (born 1931)
Robert Del Tufo, Attorney General of New Jersey (born 1933)
March 3
Retta Ward, health official and educator (born 1953)
William O'Brien, police officer (born 1944)
Laura Knaperek, politician (born 1955)
Henry R. Horsey, judge (born 1924)
Gavin Christopher, singer, songwriter, musician and producer (born 1949)
Jack Buckalew, politician (born 1932)
Rooney L. Bowen, politician (born 1933)
Ralph Baruch, President of Viacom (born 1923)
March 4
William H. Plackett, naval non-commissioned officer (born 1937)
Thomas G. Morris, politician (born 1919)
Joey Martin Feek, country singer (born 1975)
Pat Conroy, author (born 1945)
Bud Collins, journalist and sportscaster (born 1929)
March 5
Al Wistert, football player (born 1920)
Ray Tomlinson, computer programmer (born 1941)
Robert Redbird, artist (born 1939)
Caesar Belser, football player (born 1944)
March 6
Gary Smalley, family counselor and author (born 1940)
Harold H. Saunders, diplomat (born 1930)
Nancy Reagan, First Lady of the United States (born 1921)
Elizabeth Garrett, 13th President of Cornell University (born 1963)
Jerry Bridges, evangelist and author (born 1929)
Barbara Almond, psychiatrist (born 1938)
March 7
Quentin Young, physician and activist (born 1923)
Paul Ryan, comic artist (born 1949)
Steve Kraly, baseball player (born 1929)
Bobby Johns, race car driver (born 1932)
Joe Cabot, jazz trumpeter and bandleader (born 1921)
Gary Braasch, photographer (born 1945)
March 8
Alfred E. Senn, historian and academic (born 1932)
David S. Johnson, computer scientist (born 1945)
Ron Jacobs, broadcaster (born 1937)
Richard Davalos, actor (born 1930)
March 9
Coy Wayne Wesbrook, convicted mass murderer (born 1958)
Bill Wade, football player (born 1930)
Clyde Lovellette, basketball player (born 1929)
Ralph S. Larsen, CEO of Johnson & Johnson (born 1938)
John Gutfreund, investor and CEO of Salomon Brothers (born 1929)
March 10
Gogi Grant, pop singer (born 1924)
William Dyke, Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin (born 1930)
Ernestine Anderson, jazz singer (born 1928)
March 11
Ruth Terry, singer and actress (born 1920)
Gerard Reedy, 30th President of the College of the Holy Cross (born 1939)
Louis Meyers, festival organizer, co-founder of SXSW (born 1955)
Shawn Elliott, actor and singer (born 1937)
Ben Bagdikian, educator and journalist (born 1920)
Joe Ascione, jazz drummer (born 1961)
March 12
Bill Whitby, baseball player (born 1943)
Lloyd Shapley, mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1923)
Morton Hunt, psychologist and science writer (born 1920)
Verena Huber-Dyson, mathematician (born 1923)
Donnie Duncan, football coach (born 1940)
Tommy Brown, singer (born 1931)
March 13
Martin Olav Sabo, politician (born 1938)
Hilary Putnam, philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist (born 1926)
Sidney Mear, trumpeter (born 1918)
Darryl Hunt, justice reform activist (born 1965)
March 14
Vic Schwenk, football player, coach and executive (born 1924)
June Peppas, baseball player (born 1929)
Lloyd R. Leavitt Jr., lieutenant general (born 1928)
Geoffrey Hartman, German-born literary theorist (born 1929)
Tamara Grigsby, politician and social worker (born 1974)
Virgilio Elizondo, Roman Catholic priest, theologian and civil rights activist (born 1935)
Patrick Cain, football player (born 1962)
John W. Cahn, German-born metallurgist (born 1928)
March 15
Alice Pollitt, baseball player (born 1929)
Earline W. Parmon, politician (born 1943)
Ralph C. Johnson, politician and businessman (born 1953)
Daryl Coley, gospel singer (born 1955)
March 16
Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Russian-born poet and mathematician (born 1924)
Frank Sinatra Jr., singer and actor (born 1944)
Gene Short, basketball player (born 1953)
William B. Bader, civil servant (born 1931)
March 17
Steve Young, singer-songwriter (born 1942)
Charles Kaufman, music educator (born 1928)
Larry Drake, actor (born 1950)
Claudine K. Brown, museum director (born 1949)
E.L. Boteler, farmer and politician (born 1920)
Ralph David Abernathy III, politician and businessman (born 1959)
March 18
Harold Zisla, painter (born 1925)
Tray Walker, football player (born 1992)
Joe Santos, actor (born 1931)
Fred Richards, baseball player (born 1927)
Cherylene Lee, actress and playwright (born 1956)
David Egan, singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1954)
March 19
Jerry Taylor, politician and businessman (born 1937)
Bob Adelman, photographer (born 1930)
March 20
Gayle Hopkins, long jumper (born 1941)
Robert J. Healey, political activist and attorney (born 1957)
March 21
Carolyn Squires, nurse and politician (born 1940)
Andrew Grove, Hungarian-born electronic executive (born 1936)
Leon Charney, real estate investor, author, media personality and philanthropist (born 1938)
Peter Brown, actor (born 1935)
Leroy Blunt, politician (born 1921)
March 22
Adam Kelly Ward, convicted murderer (born 1982)
Harold J. Morowitz, biophysicist (born 1927)
Rita Gam, actress (born 1927)
Santiago J. Erevia, soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1946)
Glen Dawson, rock climber and mountaineer (born 1912)
Phife Dawg, rapper (born 1970)
Richard Bradford, actor (born 1934)
March 23
John McKibbin, politician and businessman (born 1947)
Ken Howard, actor and President of SAG/SAG-AFTRA (2009–2016) (born 1944)
Ruth Inge Hardison, sculptor, artist and photographer (born 1914)
Joe Garagiola Sr., baseball player and broadcaster (born 1926)
March 24
Kevin Turner, football player (born 1969)
Garry Shandling, actor, comedian and writer (born 1949)
Nicholas Scoppetta, 31st Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department (born 1932)
Leonard L. Northrup Jr., engineer (born 1918)
Edgar G. "Sonny" Mouton Jr., politician (born 1929)
Tibor R. Machan, Hungarian-born philosopher (born 1939)
Earl Hamner Jr., television writer and producer (born 1923)
Maggie Blye, actress (born 1939)
March 25
Shannon Bolin, actress and singer (born 1917)
David H. Porter, 5th President of Skidmore College (born 1935)
Lester Thurow, political economist (born 1938)
March 26
Donald Stoltenberg, painter and author (born 1927)
Jim Harrison, author (born 1937)
David Baker, jazz composer (born 1931)
March 27
Gilbert Horn Sr., soldier, politician and judge (born 1923)
Curtis Hertel, 64th Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives (born 1953)
Toni Grant, psychologist and radio personality (born 1942)
Eric Engberg, news correspondent (born 1941)
Vince Boryla, basketball player, coach and executive (born 1927)
Mother Angelica, Franciscan nun and founder of EWTN (born 1923)
March 28
W. Ward Reynoldson, lawyer and judge (born 1920)
James Noble, actor (born 1922)
Igor Khait, animator (born 1963)
Bogdan Denitch, Bulgarian-born sociologist (born 1929)
March 29
John Wittenborn, football player (born 1936)
Steven Sample, 10th President of the University of Southern California (born 1940)
Patty Duke, actress and President of SAG (1985–1988) (born 1946)
Frank De Felitta, author, producer and director (born 1921)
March 30
Bill Rosendahl, politician (born 1945)
J. Thomas Rosch, lawyer (born 1939)
Frankie Michaels, singer and actor (born 1955)
Shirley Hufstedler, 1st United States Secretary of Education (born 1925)
March 31
Ward Wettlaufer, golfer (born 1935)
Terry Plumeri, musician, conductor and composer (born 1944)
Eugene E. Parker, sports agent (born 1956)
Werner Baer, economist (born 1931)
April
April 1
Patricia Thompson, philosopher and author (born 1926)
Marjorie Peters, baseball player (born 1918)
Herbert Theodore Milburn, judge (born 1931)
Richard S. Kem, army general (born 1934)
Tom Coughlin, business executive and fraudster (born 1949)
April 2
Amber Rayne, pornographic actress (born 1984)
Moreese Bickham, wrongfully convicted murderer and anti-death penalty activist (born 1917)
Rick Bartow, artist and sculptor (born 1946)
April 3
Clarence Clifton Young, politician (born 1922)
Bill Henderson, jazz vocalist and actor (born 1926)
Henry Harpending, anthropologist (born 1944)
Robert Guinan, painter (born 1934)
Joe Medicine Crow, Crow historian and author (born 1913)
Ward Crutchfield, politician (born 1928)
Alex de Jesús, boxer (born 1983)
Erik Bauersfeld, radio dramatist and voice actor (born 1922)
April 4
Mike Sandlock, baseball player (born 1915)
George Radosevich, football player (born 1928)
John Miller, politician (born 1947)
Carlo Mastrangelo, doo-wop singer (born 1937)
Archie Dees, basketball player (born 1936)
April 5
Barbara Turner, screenwriter and actress (born 1936)
E. M. Nathanson, author (born 1928)
Leon Haywood, funk singer-songwriter and record producer (born 1942)
Roman Gribbs, 65th Mayor of Detroit, Michigan (born 1925)
April 6
Murray Wier, basketball player (born 1926)
Pablo Lucio Vasquez, convicted murderer (born 1977)
Ogden Mills Phipps, financier, racehorse owner and breeder (born 1940)
Robert MacCrate, lawyer (born 1921)
Joel Kurtzman, economist (born 1947)
Merle Haggard, singer-songwriter and musician (born 1937)
Dennis Davis, drummer (born 1951)
April 7
Blackjack Mulligan, professional wrestler (born 1942)
Vladimir Kagan, furniture designer (born 1927)
Frank E. Denholm, politician (born 1923)
Joe Freeman Britt, attorney and judge (born 1935)
April 8
Edward J. Steimel, lobbyist and fundraiser (born 1922)
Daisy Lewellyn, reality television personality (born 1980)
Charles Hirsch, forensic pathologist (born 1937)
William Hamilton, cartoonist, playwright and novelist (born 1939)
Dick Alban, football player (born 1929)
April 9
Will Smith, football player (born 1981)
Tony Conrad, experimental filmmaker and musician (born 1940)
Duane Clarridge, spy (born 1932)
Arthur Anderson, actor (born 1922)
April 10
Wayne Southwick, surgeon and academic (born 1923)
Nicholas Hood, minister, politician and civil rights activist (born 1923)
Louis Gladstone, politician (born 1927)
April 11
Ed Snider, sports executive (born 1933)
Anne Gould Hauberg, arts patron (born 1917)
Hokie Gajan, football player and broadcaster (born 1959)
Doug Banks, radio personality (born 1958)
April 12
Spec Richardson, baseball executive (born 1923)
Balls Mahoney, professional wrestler (born 1972)
Bryce Jordan, 14th President of the Pennsylvania State University (born 1924)
Anne Jackson, actress, wife of Eli Wallach (born 1925)
David Gest, entertainer, producer and television personality (born 1953)
Paul Carey, broadcaster and sportscaster (born 1928)
Hector A. Cafferata Jr., soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1929)
April 13
Nera White, basketball player (born 1935)
Ray Thornton, politician and attorney (born 1928)
April 14
Carl M. Vogel, politician (born 1955)
Dan Ireland, Canadian-born film director and producer (born 1958)
Fred Hayman, Swiss-born fashion retailer and entrepreneur (born 1925)
Francesco Guarraci, Italian-born mobster (born 1955)
April 15
Frederick Mayer, German-born spy (born 1921)
Laura Liu, judge (born 1966)
April 16
Maurice Kenny, Mohawk poet (born 1929)
William M. Gray, meteorologist (born 1929)
Rod Daniel, film and television director (born 1942)
Ron Bonham, basketball player (born 1942)
April 17
Doris Roberts, actress (born 1925)
Clifton C. Garvin, businessman (born 1921)
April 18
Scott Nimerfro, television writer and producer (born 1961)
Ben-Zion Gold, Polish-born rabbi (born 1923)
Bill Campbell, businessman and executive (born 1940)
Paul Busiek, physician and legislator (born 1923)
Brian Asawa, opera singer (born 1966)
April 19
Pete Zorn, musician (born 1950)
Milt Pappas, baseball player (born 1939)
John McConathy, basketball player (born 1930)
Richard Lyons, musician (born 1959)
Walter Kohn, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1923)
April 20
Dwayne Washington, basketball player (born 1964)
Harry Perkowski, baseball player (born 1922)
Velda González, actress and politician (born 1933)
Chyna, professional wrestler, bodybuilder and actress (born 1969)
Solomon Blatt Jr., judge (born 1921)
April 21
Peter Ruckman, Independent Baptist pastor (born 1921)
Prince, singer, songwriter, musician and actor (born 1958)
Michelle McNamara, crime writer, wife of Patton Oswalt (born 1970)
Lonnie Mack, singer and guitarist (born 1941)
April 22Jory Prum, audio engineer (born 1975)
April 23
Horace Ward, judge (born 1927)
Tom Muecke, football player (born 1963)
Ron Brace, football player (born 1986)
April 24
George Alexis Weymouth, artist and conservationist (born 1936)
Terry Redlin, artist (born 1937)
Billy Paul, R&B singer (born 1934)
Lizette Parker, Mayor of Teaneck, New Jersey (born 1972)
Tommy Kono, weightlifter (born 1930)
Steve Julian, radio host (born 1958)
Perry O. Hooper Sr., jurist (born 1925)
Manuel de la Torre, Spanish-born golf instructor (born 1921)
April 25Joe Blahak, football player (born 1950)
April 26
Harry Wu, Chinese-born human rights activist (born 1937)
James H. Ware, biostatistician (born 1941)
Ozzie Silna, basketball executive (born 1932)
Winston Hill, football player (born 1941)
April 27
Willie L. Williams, police commissioner (born 1943)
Harold Cohen, British-born digital artist (born 1928)
April 28
Blackie Sherrod, sportswriter (born 1919)
Charles Gatewood, photographer (born 1942)
Joe Durham, baseball player (born 1931)
Conrad Burns, U.S. Senator (1989–2007) (born 1935)
April 29Don White, race car driver (born 1926)
April 30
Peter Thomas, television announcer and narrator (born 1924)
Tracy Scott, script supervisor (born 1969)
Marisol Escobar, French-born artist and sculptor (born 1930)
Wayne Crawford, actor, producer, director and screenwriter (born 1942)
Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest and peace activist (born 1921)
Daniel Aaron, writer and academic, co-founder of the Library of America (born 1912)
May
May 1
Doug Raney, jazz guitarist, son of Jimmy Raney (born 1956)
Solomon W. Golomb, mathematician and engineer (born 1932)
May 2
Gordie Sundin, baseball player (born 1937)
Afeni Shakur, political activist and businesswoman, mother of Tupac Shakur (born 1947)
Jacky Lee, football player (born 1938)
Al Ferrari, basketball player (born 1933)
Mel Bartholomew, inventor and businessman (born 1932)
May 3
Ret Turner, costume designer (born 1929)
Ian Sander, film and television producer (born 1947)
Nicolas Noxon, documentary filmmaker (born 1936)
Thomas W. Libous, politician (born 1953)
Frank Levingston, supercentenarian (born 1905)
Abel Fernandez, actor (born 1930)
Paul Boutelle, politician (born 1934)
May 4
Jordan Parsons, mixed martial artist (born 1990)
Ursula Mamlok, German-born composer (born 1923)
Howard King, public address announcer (born 1933)
Karl Butzer, German-born geographer (born 1934)
Bob Bennett, U.S. Senator (1993–2011) (born 1933)
Blas Avena, mixed martial artist (born 1983)
May 5
Rollin Dart, CEO of Dart National Bank (born 1925)
Dick Estell, radio host (born 1920)
May 6
Rickey Smith, singer and reality show contestant (born 1979)
Pierre, African penguin (born 1983)
Candye Kane, blues singer-songwriter and actress (born 1961)
Johnny Joannou, politician (born 1940)
David Hall, 20th Governor of Oklahoma (born 1930)
Christopher T. Carley, real estate developer (born 1943)
May 7
John Stabb, punk vocalist (born 1961)
Michael S. Harper, poet (born 1938)
Ann Day, politician (born 1938)
May 8
John Young, baseball player, scout and executive (born 1949)
Nick Lashaway, actor (born 1988)
William Schallert, actor and President of SAG (1979–1981) (born 1922)
Louisa Chase, Panamanian-born painter and printmaker (born 1951)
John Bradshaw, motivational writer and speaker (born 1933)
Tom M. Apostol, mathematician (born 1923)
May 9
Ronald W. Walker, historian (born 1939)
Karl Maramorosch, Austrian-born virologist (born 1915)
Chuck Curtis, football coach (born 1935)
May 10Mark Lane, lawyer, politician, civil rights activist and author (born 1927)
May 11
Michael Ratner, attorney (born 1943)
Katherine Dunn, novelist (born 1945)
May 12
Peter J. Liacouras, President of Temple University (born 1931)
Del Latta, politician (born 1920)
Julius La Rosa, singer (born 1930)
Susannah Mushatt Jones, supercentenarian, last known American born in the 19th century (born 1899)
May 13
James M. Shuart, President of Hofstra University (born 1931)
Dick McAuliffe, baseball player (born 1939)
Rabbit Kekai, surfer (born 1920)
Sammy Ellis, baseball player (born 1941)
Buster Cooper, jazz trombonist (born 1929)
Bill Backer, advertising executive (born 1926)
Murray A. Straus, American sociologist and professor (University of New Hampshire), creator of the Conflict tactics scale (born 1926)
May 14Monteagle Stearns, U.S. Ambassador to Greece (1981–1985) and Ivory Coast (1976–1979) (born 1924)
May 16
Robert "Bobby" Freeman, politician (born 1934)
Jim McMillian, basketball player (born 1948)
Julia Meade, actress (born 1925)
Emilio Navaira, country and Tejano singer (born 1962)
Mamie Rallins, hurdler (born 1941)
Jack Unruh, commercial illustrator (born 1935)
May 17Guy Clark, singer-songwriter, Grammy winner (2014) (born 1941).
May 18
Elaine Abraham, Tlingit elder and nurse (born 1929)
Fritz Stern, German-born historian (born 1926)
Susan Tolchin, political scientist (born 1941)
May 19
Irving Benson, actor and comedian (born 1914)
John Berry, musician (born 1963)
Jim Ray Hart, baseball player (born 1941)
Morley Safer, Canadian-born journalist (born 1931)
May 20
Patricia M. Derian, human rights activist (born 1929)
Brandon Grove, U.S. Ambassador to East Germany and Zaire (1984–1987) (born 1929)
Albert M. Sackett, Navy rear admiral (born 1920)
Wheelock Whitney Jr., sports executive (born 1926)
May 21
Homeboykris, racehorse (born 2007)
Nick Menza, German-born drummer (born 1964)
May 22
Tom DeLeone, football player (born 1950)
George Wildman, cartoonist (born 1927)
May 23Joe Fleishaker, actor (born 1954)
May 24
Suzanne Corkin, neuroscientist (born 1937)
Buck Kartalian, actor (born 1922)
Mell Lazarus, cartoonist (born 1927)
Hughes Oliphant Old, theologian (born 1933)
May 25Nancy Dow, actress and model (born 1936)
May 26
Cassandra Butts, lawyer (born 1965)
Hedy Epstein, German-born Holocaust survivor and political activist (born 1924)
Lou Grasmick, baseball player (born 1924)
Iana Kasian, Ukrainian-born prosecutor and murder victim (born 1986)
Gustav Meier, Swiss-born conductor (born 1929)
Angela Paton, actress (born 1930)
Coe Swobe, politician, member of the Nevada Senate (1966–1974) (born 1929)
Bob Williams, football player (born 1930)
May 27
Michael Dann, television executive (born 1921)
Louise Erickson, baseball player (born 1929)
Frank Modell, cartoonist (born 1917)
Morton White, philosopher (born 1917)
May 28
Bryce Dejean-Jones, basketball player (born 1992)
Peter DeTroy, attorney (born 1948)
M. Brendan Fleming, politician, Mayor of Lowell, Massachusetts (1982–1984) (born 1926)
Harambe, endangered gorilla (born 1999)
May 29
T. Marshall Hahn, educator and executive (born 1926)
Ralph Ketner, businessman and philanthropist (born 1920)
Don McNay, financial author (born 1959)
May 30C. Michael Harper, executive (born 1927)
May 31
Jan Crouch, televangelist and broadcasting executive (born 1928)
David Tod Roy, sinologist and translator (born 1933)
June
June 1
Roger Enrico, businessman (born 1944)
Boyce F. Martin Jr., judge, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (1996–2003) (born 1935)
June 2
Donny Everett, baseball player (born 1997)
Wayne Kingery, football player (born 1927)
Lee Pfund, baseball player and college baseball and basketball coach (born 1919)
June 3
Muhammad Ali, boxer (born 1942)
Henry Childs, football player (born 1951)
June 4
Phyllis Curtin, operatic soprano (born 1921)
Bill Richmond, film and television writer and producer (born 1921)
William Wright, author, editor, and playwright (born 1930)
June 5
Jerome Bruner, psychologist (born 1915)
David Lamb, journalist (born 1940)
Cedric Robinson, political scientist and activist (born 1940)
Eleanor Zelliot, writer and educator (born 1926)
June 6
Helen Fabela Chávez, labor unionist and activist (born 1928)
Theresa Saldana, actress (born 1954)
Kimbo Slice, Bahamian-born mixed martial artist and boxer (born 1974)
June 7
Leonard Hill, television producer and real estate developer (born 1947)
Thomas Perkins, businessman (born 1932)
Sean Rooks, basketball player and coach (born 1969)
Bryan Wiedmeier, football executive (born 1959)
June 9
J. Reilly Lewis, choral conductor and organist (born 1944)
Brooks Thompson, basketball player and coach (born 1970)
June 10Mary Feik, aviator (born 1924)
Gordie Howe- hockey player (b.1928)
June 11
Gilbert Blue, Catawba Nation chief (1973–2007) (born 1933)
Stacey Castor, convicted murderer (born 1967)
Christina Grimmie, singer and songwriter (born 1994)
Bryan Robinson, football player (born 1974)
June 12
Michelle Cliff, Jamaican-born author (born 1946)
Earl Faison, football player (born 1939)
Curley Johnson, football player (born 1935)
Danny Kopec, chess player (born 1954)
George Voinovich, Governor of Ohio (1991–98) and Senator from Ohio (1999–2011) (born 1936)
Janet Waldo, actress and voice artist (born 1920)
49 victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre
June 13
Anahid Ajemian, violinist (born 1924)
Michu Meszaros, Hungarian-born actor (born 1939)
Chips Moman, record producer, guitarist, and songwriter (born 1937)
Robert T. Paine, ecologist (born 1933)
Gregory Rabassa, literary translator (born 1922)
June 14
Melvin Dwork, interior designer and LGBT rights activist (born 1922)
Ronnie Claire Edwards, actress (born 1933)
Ann Morgan Guilbert, actress (born 1928)
June 15
Lois Duncan, author (born 1934)
Richard Selzer, surgeon and author (born 1928)
June 16
Irving Moskowitz, businessman and philanthropist (born 1928)
Bill Berkson, poet and literary critic (born 1939)
June 17
Thomas Ashley Graves Jr., academic (born 1924)
Ron Lester, actor (born 1970)
David Morgenthaler, businessman (born 1919)
June 18
Curt Hofstad, politician (born 1946)
Kitty Rhoades, politician (born 1951)
Joe Schaffernoth, baseball player (born 1937)
June 19
David Johnson, Australian-born businessman (born 1933)
Anton Yelchin, Soviet-born actor (born 1989)
June 20
Frank Chapot, equestrian (born 1932)
Alvin Endt, educator and politician (born 1933)
Bill Ham, music manager and record producer (born 1937)
Rich Olive, politician (born 1949)
Chayito Valdez, Mexican-born singer and actress (born 1945)
June 21
Dan Daniel, radio personality (born 1934)
Jack Fuller, journalist, novelist, and publisher (born 1946)
Wayne Jackson, R&B trumpeter (born 1941)
Kenworth Moffett, art curator and museum director (born 1934)
June 22
Joan Acker, sociologist and women's rights activist (born 1924)
Jim Boyd, singer-songwriter (born 1956)
June 23
Mike Flynn, online journalist and conservative activist (born 1968)
James Green, labor historian and activist (born 1944)
Michael Herr, author and war correspondent (born 1940)
Stuart Nisbet, actor (born 1934)
Ralph Stanley, bluegrass singer and banjoist (born 1927)
June 24
Chaim Avrohom Horowitz, Polish-born rabbi (born 1933)
Bernie Worrell, funk keyboardist (born 1944)
June 25
Raymond Bateman, politician (born 1927)
Bill Cunningham, street and fashion photographer (born 1929)
Jim Hickman, baseball player (born 1937)
Peter Hutton, experimental filmmaker (born 1944)
Hal Lear, basketball player (born 1935)
June 26
Jona Goldrich, Polish-born real estate developer and philanthropist (born 1927)
Barbara Goldsmith, author, journalist, editor, and philanthropist (born 1931)
John J. Santucci, lawyer and politician (born 1931)
June 27
Simon Ramo, engineer, businessman, and author (born 1913)
Mack Rice, singer and songwriter (born 1933)
Alvin Toffler, writer and futurist (born 1928)
June 28
Scotty Moore, rock and roll guitarist (born 1931)
Buddy Ryan, football coach (born 1934)
Pat Summitt, women's basketball coach (born 1952)
Zurlon Tipton, football player (born 1990)
June 29
Stanley Gault, businessman and philanthropist (born 1929)
Irving Gottesman, psychologist (born 1930)
Carl Haas, auto racing driver and owner (born 1929)
Edward L. Salmon Jr., Episcopal bishop (born 1934)
Rob Wasserman, rock double-bassist (born 1952)
June 30
Don Friedman, jazz pianist (born 1935)
Joe Scott, football player (born 1926)
July
July 2
Roscoe Brown, aviator and educator (born 1922)
Michael Cimino, film director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1939)
Alphie McCourt, Irish-born writer (born 1940)
Jack C. Taylor, businessman, billionaire, and philanthropist (born 1922)
Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born writer, educator, political activist, and Holocaust survivor (born 1928)
July 3
Noel Neill, actress (born 1920)
Clifford Vaughs, civil rights activist, filmmaker, and motorcycle builder (born 1937)
July 4Abner J. Mikva, politician, federal judge, lawyer and law professor (born 1926)
July 5William L. Armstrong, politician and businessman; U.S. Senator from Colorado (1979–1991) (born 1937)
July 6
Marian Bergeson, politician; member of the California State Assembly (1978–1984) and California State Senate (1984–1995) (born 1925)
Larry Bock, entrepreneur (born 1959)
John McMartin, actor (born 1929)
Mike Moore, football player (born 1956)
July 7Tom Marr, talk radio host and sportscaster (born 1942)
July 8
Harold A. Linstone, German-born mathematician and futurist (born 1924)
William H. McNeill, Canadian-born historian (born 1917)
Howard Raiffa, academic (born 1924)
July 9
Norman Abbott, television director (born 1922)
Sydney Schanberg, journalist (born 1934)
July 10
Robert E. Cooper Sr., judge (born 1920)
Alfred G. Knudson, geneticist (born 1922)
July 11
John Brademas, politician and educator, U.S. Representative from Indiana (1959–1981) (born 1927)
Jim Metzen, politician (born 1943)
Scott Olin Wright, judge (born 1923)
July 13
Marion Campbell, football player and coach (born 1929)
Garry N. Drummond, businessman and philanthropist (born 1938)
Robert Fano, Italian-born computer scientist (born 1917)
Hollis L. Harris, businessman (born 1931)
Carolyn See, author and educator (born 1934)
July 14
Roger Chanoine, football player (born 1976)
Troy Mader, rancher and politician; Wyoming state representative (2014–2015) (born 1955)
Sharon Runner, politician; California state senator (2011–2016) (born 1954)
July 15
Karl E. Case, economist and academic (born 1946)
Duncan M. Gray Jr., Episcopalian prelate (born 1926)
July 16
Bonnie Brown, country singer (born 1938)
Robert Burren Morgan, politician; U.S. Senator from North Carolina (1975–1981) (born 1925)
Gary S. Paxton, record producer, songwriter, and musician (born 1939)
Nate Thurmond, basketball player (born 1941)
Alan Vega, vocalist and visual artist (born 1938)
July 17
Wendell Anderson, politician; 33rd Governor of Minnesota (1971–1976) (born 1933)
Mel Durslag, sportswriter (born 1921)
July 18
John Kerr, author (born 1950)
Jeffrey Montgomery, LGBT rights activist (born 1953)
Billy Name, photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer (born 1940)
July 19
Betsy Bloomingdale, socialite and philanthropist (born 1922)
Garry Marshall, actor, director, writer, and producer (born 1934)
Chief Zee, Washington Redskins superfan (born 1941)
July 20
William Gaines, journalist and academic
Mark Takai, politician; U.S. Representative from Hawaii (2015–2016) (born 1967)
July 21
Bill Cardille, television and radio personality (born 1928)
Thomas R. McCarthy, racehorse owner and trainer (born 1934)
Lewie Steinberg, rhythm and blues bassist (born 1933)
July 22
Dave Bald Eagle, Lakota actor, musician, soldier, and stuntman (born 1919)
Dennis Green, football coach (born 1949)
Zeke Smith, football player (born 1936)
July 23
Sheilla Lampkin, politician (born 1945)
Harold Duane Vietor, federal judge (born 1931)
July 24
Marni Nixon, singer and actress (born 1930)
Conrad Prebys, real estate developer and philanthropist (born 1933)
Don Roberts, ice hockey coach (born 1933)
July 25
Dwight Jones, basketball player (born 1952)
Tim LaHaye, evangelical minister, author, and speaker (born 1926)
Tom Peterson, retailer and television personality (born 1930)
Franklin Van Antwerpen, federal judge (born 1941)
July 26
Miss Cleo, psychic and television personality (born 1926)
David A. Katz, federal judge (born 1933)
Forrest Mars Jr., businessman and billionaire (born 1931)
Sandy Pearlman, record producer, talent manager, and songwriter (born 1943)
July 27
LaVon Crosby, politician; Nebraska state senator (1988–2000) (born 1924)
Jack Davis, cartoonist and illustrator (born 1924)
Doug Griffin, baseball player (born 1947)
James Alan McPherson, short story writer and essayist (born 1943)
Richard Thompson, cartoonist (born 1957)
July 28Conrad K. Cyr, federal judge (born 1931)
July 29
Antonio Armstrong, football player (born 1973)
Zelda Fichandler, theatre producer, director, manager, and educator (born 1924)
July 30
Alan Brice, baseball player (born 1937)
Gloria DeHaven, actress and singer (born 1925)
Dave Schwartz, meteorologist (born 1953)
July 31Eric Moon, British-born librarian (born 1923)
August
August 1
Jonathan D. Krane, film producer (born 1952)
Jim Northrup, Ojibwe writer (born 1943)
August 2
Gordon Danby, physicist
David Huddleston, actor (born 1930)
Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-born chemist (born 1946)
August 3
Abdul Jeelani, basketball player (born 1954)
Steve LaTourette, politician; U.S. Representative from Ohio (2005–2013) (born 1954)
Elliot Tiber, writer and artist (born 1935)
August 4
Jean Antone, wrestler (born 1943)
David Dudley Dowd Jr., federal judge (born 1929)
Patrice Munsel, operatic soprano (born 1925)
Albert Nicholas, basketball player, businessman and philanthropist (born 1931)
Gaspar Saladino, comic letterer and logo designer (born 1927)
August 5
Alan Bates, politician; Oregon state senator (2005–2016) (born 1945)
Richard Fagan, country songwriter and musician (born 1947)
George E. Mendenhall, Biblical scholar (born 1916)
August 6
Sid Applebaum, businessman (born 1924)
Helen Delich Bentley, politician; U.S. Representative from Maryland (1985–1995) (born 1923)
Joani Blank, feminist writer, sex educator, and entrepreneur (born 1937)
Art Demmas, football official (born 1934)
Pete Fountain, jazz clarinetist (born 1930)
August 7 – Bryan Clauson, racing driver (born 1989)
August 8 – George Yarno, football player (born 1957)
August 9
Bill Dooley, football player and coach (born 1934)
Barry Jenner, actor (born 1941)
W. Carter Merbreier, television personality, minister, and police chaplain (born 1926)
August 10
Neill Armstrong, football player and coach (born 1926)
Steve Pivovar, sportswriter (born 1952)
John Saunders, Canadian-born sports journalist and broadcaster (born 1955)
Tom Wilson, football player and coach (born 1944)
August 11
Thomas Steinbeck, author, journalist, and photographer (born 1944)
Glenn Yarbrough, folk singer (born 1930)
August 12
Alison Piepmeier, feminist writer, academic, and activist (born 1972)
Ruby Wilson, blues and gospel singer (born 1948)
August 13
Allen Kelley, basketball player (born 1932)
Michel Richard, French-born chef and restaurateur (born 1948)
August 14
Marion Christopher Barry, businessman (born 1980)
DJ Official, hip hop musician and producer (born 1976)
Fyvush Finkel, actor (born 1922)
Ron Vander Kelen, football player (born 1939)
August 15
Choo-Choo Coleman, baseball player (born 1937)
Bobby Hutcherson, jazz vibraphonist and composer (born 1941)
Richard Wackar, football and basketball coach (born 1928)
August 16
John McLaughlin, political commentator and television personality (born 1927)
Richard Seminack, Eastern Catholic bishop (born 1942)
August 17
Steve Arlin, baseball player (born 1945)
James R. Bennett, politician; 49th and 52nd Secretary of State of Alabama (born 1940)
Arthur Hiller, Canadian-born film and television director (born 1923)
John Timoney, Irish-born police officer (born 1948)
August 18
Jay S. Fishman, businessman (born 1952)
John William Vessey Jr., U.S. Army general; tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (born 1922)
August 19
Donald Henderson, physician, educator, and epidemiologist (born 1928)
Edward T. Maloney, aviation historian (born 1928)
Lou Pearlman, record producer, music manager, and fraudster (born 1954)
Jack Riley, actor, voice artist, and comedian (born 1935)
August 20
George E. Curry, journalist (born 1947)
Irving Fields, pianist and composer (born 1915)
Jim Gibbons, football player (born 1936)
Harry Gilmer, football player (born 1926)
Joseph A. Palaia, politician; New Jersey state senator (1989–2008) (born 1927)
Morton Schindel, film producer and educator (born 1918)
Morris A. Wessel, pediatrician (born 1917)
August 21Peter deCourcy Hero, college and foundation president (born 1942)
August 22
Michael Brooks, basketball player (born 1958)
Edward Malefakis, history professor (born 1932)
Jane Thompson, designer, architect, and urban planner (born 1927)
August 23
Steven Hill, actor (born 1922)
Aaron W. Plyler, businessman and politician (born 1926)
August 24
Joel Bergman, architect (born 1936)
Tom Ganley, businessman and politician (born 1942)
Gregory P. Schmidt, politician (born 1947)
August 25
James Cronin, physicist (born 1931)
Warren Hinckle, political journalist (born 1938)
Marvin Kaplan, actor and voice artist (born 1927)
Rudy Van Gelder, recording engineer (born 1924)
August 26
Steve Korcheck, baseball player (born 1932)
E. Parry Thomas, banker, racehorse owner, and philanthropist (born 1921)
August 27Bill Lenkaitis, football player (born 1946)
August 28
Mr. Fuji, professional wrestler and manager (born 1937)
Joe R. Hicks, political commentator and activist (born 1941)
Nate Hirsch, sportscaster (born 1947)
August 29
Dee Dowis, football player (born 1968)
Gene Wilder, actor, screenwriter, film director, and author (born 1933)
August 30
Dan Dryden, politician (born 1944)
Hoot Hester, fiddle player (born 1951)
David Lavery, academic (born 1949)
Doris McLemore, educator; last fluent speaker of the Wichita language (born 1927)
Joe Sutter, aeronautical engineer (born 1921)
August 31 – Nathan Lyons, photographer (born 1930)
September
September 1
Thomas G. Doran, Roman Catholic prelate (born 1936)
Fred Hellerman, folk musician (born 1927)
Kacey Jones, singer-songwriter and humorist (born 1950)
Jon Polito, actor and voice artist (born 1950)
September 2
Blackie Gejeian, race car driver and auto customizer (born 1926)
Jerry Heller, music manager (born 1940)
Don Minnick, baseball player (born 1931)
Margrit Mondavi, Swiss-born businesswoman (born 1925)
September 3
John W. Drummond, politician (born 1919)
Albert Hofstede, politician (born 1940)
Leslie H. Martinson, film and television director (born 1915)
September 4Clarence D. Rappleyea Jr., lawyer and politician (born 1933)
September 5
Duane Graveline, physician and astronaut (born 1931)
Hugh O'Brian, actor (born 1925)
Rudolph T. Randa, federal judge (born 1940)
Phyllis Schlafly, constitutional lawyer, conservative activist, and author (born 1924)
September 6
Cary Blanchard, football player (born 1968)
John Royston Coleman, labor economist and university president (born 1921)
Darren Seals, civil rights activist (born 1987)
Robert Timberg, journalist and author (born 1940)
September 7
Bobby Chacon, boxer (born 1951)
Clifford Curry, R&B singer (born 1936)
Norbert Schemansky, weightlifter (born 1924)
September 8
Greta Zimmer Friedman, dental assistant, subject of V-J Day in Times Square (born 1924)
The Lady Chablis, drag queen (born 1957)
September 9
Chad Brown, football official (born 1948)
Bill Nojay, politician (born 1956)
Ben Press, tennis player, coach, and writer (born 1924)
James Stacy, actor (born 1936)
September 10
Robert Eugene Allen, businessman (born 1935)
Chris Stone, businessman (born 1935)
Frank Masley, Olympic luger (born 1960)
September 11
Alexis Arquette, actress (born 1969)
Lawrence D. Cohen, attorney, politician, and judge (born 1933)
September 12
Edmund D. Edelman, politician (born 1930)
Peter Pettalia, politician (born 1955)
Stanley Sheinbaum, academic and activist (born 1920)
September 13
Jack Hofsiss, theatre, film, and television director (born 1950)
Judith Jacobs, politician (born 1939)
Mike Roberts, sportscaster (born 1933)
Joe Zaleski, football player and coach (born 1927)
September 14
Don Buchla, musical instrument designer (born 1937)
Kim McGuire, actress and lawyer (born 1955)
Dean White, businessman (born 1923)
September 15Rose Mofford, politician (born 1922)
September 16
Edward Albee, playwright (born 1928)
Don Bass, wrestler (born 1946)
Marvin Mottet, Roman Catholic priest (born 1930)
Joe Seng, politician (born 1946)
September 17Charmian Carr, actress and singer (born 1942)
September 18
Robert W. Cone, U.S. Army general (born 1957)
John Craighead, conservationist and naturalist (born 1916)
C. Martin Croker, animator and voice actor (born 1962)
David Kyle, science fiction writer (born 1919)
Tom Mintier, television correspondent
Joan Patricia Murphy, politician
Rose Pak, political activist (born 1948)
September 19
Bobby Breen, Canadian-born actor and singer (born 1927)
Mike Fellows, politician
Bill Glassford, football player and coach (born 1914)
Zerka T. Moreno, Dutch-born psychotherapist (born 1917)
September 20
Bill Barrett, politician; member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1991–2001) (born 1929)
Richie Dunn, ice hockey player (born 1957)
Jack Garman, computer engineer and NASA executive (born 1944)
Curtis Hanson, film producer, director, and screenwriter (born 1945)
Dennis M. Jones, businessman (born 1938)
Terry Kohler, businessman and philanthropist (born 1934)
Victor Scheinman, roboticist and inventor (born 1942)
September 21
Shawty Lo, rapper (born 1976)
John D. Loudermilk, singer and songwriter (born 1934)
September 22
Walter Bush, ice hockey executive (born 1929)
Leonard I. Garth, federal judge (born 1921)
Ed Temple, track and field coach (born 1927)
September 24
Bill Nunn, actor (born 1953)
Buckwheat Zydeco, zydeco musician (born 1947)
September 25
David Budbill, poet and playwright (born 1940)
José Fernández, Cuban-born baseball player (born 1992)
Kashif, musician, record producer, and humanitarian (born 1959)
Arnold Palmer, golfer (born 1929)
Jean Shepard, country singer and songwriter (born 1933)
Robert Weinberg, author (born 1946)
September 26
Taz Anderson, football player (born 1938)
Joe Clay, rockabilly musician (born 1938)
Jack Cotton, basketball player (born 1924)
Jack Kirrane, ice hockey player (born 1928)
Herschell Gordon Lewis, film producer, director, and screenwriter (born 1929)
September 27
Randy Duncan, football player (born 1937)
Charles Schultze, economist (born 1924)
September 28
Gary Glasberg, television writer and producer (born 1966)
Malcolm M. Lucas, 26th Chief Justice of California (born 1927)
Gloria Naylor, novelist (born 1950)
Agnes Nixon, television writer and producer (born 1922)
Timothy Pesci, politician (born 1944)
September 29
Hidden Lake, racehorse (born 1993)
Shirley Jaffe, painter and sculptor (born 1923)
Joseph Verner Reed Jr., banker and diplomat (born 1937)
Mark Ricks, politician; 40th Lieutenant Governor of Idaho (born 1924)
Ralph V. Whitworth, businessman (born 1955)
September 30
George Barris, photographer (born 1922)
Charles Brading, pharmacist and politician (born 1935)
Oscar Brand, Canadian-born folk musician (born 1920)
Frederic C. Hamilton, oilman and philanthropist (born 1927)
Jim Zapp, baseball player (born 1924)
October
October 1
Bobby Burnett, football player (born 1943)
Roger Theder, football player and coach (born 1939)
Lowell Thomas Jr., British-born film producer and politician (born 1923)
October 2
Walter Darby Bannard, painter (born 1934)
Gordon Davidson, stage and film director (born 1933)
Gary Reed, comics writer and publisher (born 1956)
October 4
Kenneth Angell, Roman Catholic prelate (born 1930)
Ivan C. Lafayette, politician (born 1930)
Ned Randolph, politician (born 1942)
Donald H. White, composer (born 1921)
October 5
Dick Haugland, biochemist and philanthropist (born 1943)
Cameron Moore, basketball player (born 1990)
Josh Samman, mixed martial artist (born 1988)
Brock Yates, journalist and author (born 1933)
October 6
Hans W. Becherer, business executive (born 1935)
George Pernicano, businessman and NFL owner (born 1917)
October 7Bill Warren, film historian and critic (born 1943)
October 8
Peter Allen, radio broadcaster (born 1920)
Don Ciccone, singer and songwriter (born 1946)
Gary Dubin, actor (born 1959)
Jacob Neusner, Jewish scholar and theologian (born 1932)
October 9
Santo DiPietro, businessman and politician (born 1934)
Donn Fendler, wilderness survivor, author, and public speaker (born 1926)
Aaron Pryor, boxer (born 1955)
Kenneth P. Thompson, lawyer and politician (born 1966)
October 10
Tony Adamowicz, racing driver (born 1941)
Leo Beranek, acoustic engineer and academic (born 1914)
Lorenzo Freeman, football player (born 1964)
John Vaughn, Franciscan Catholic leader (born 1928)
October 11
David Antin, poet (born 1932)
Tom Barnes, journalist (born 1946)
Patricia Barry, actress (born 1922)
October 12
Thomas Mikal Ford, actor (born 1964)
Jack Greenberg, civil rights lawyer and legal scholar (born 1924)
Rick Gudex, businessman and politician (born 1968)
Dylan Rieder, skateboarder and model (born 1988)
Fulton Walker, football player (born 1958)
October 13
Richard A. Pittman, U.S. Marine and Medal of Honor winner (born 1945)
Louis Stettner, photographer (born 1922)
October 14
Lucy Baxley, politician; 28th Lieutenant Governor of Alabama (born 1937)
Edward Gorman, author (born 1941)
Thom Jones, author (born 1945)
October 15
Dennis Byrd, football player (born 1966)
Quentin Groves, football player (born 1984)
Bruce Marshall, ice hockey coach (born 1962)
October 16
Clyde C. Holloway, politician and businessman (born 1943)
Ted V. Mikels, film producer, director, and screenwriter (born 1929)
Joseph A. Suozzi, Italian-born attorney and judge (born 1921)
October 17
Eddie Applegate, actor (born 1935)
Edgar Munhall, art historian and curator (born 1933)
Irwin Smigel, dentist and entrepreneur (born 1924)
Morris Stroud, football player (born 1946)
October 18
Anthony Addabbo, actor (born 1960)
David Bunnell, businessman, writer, and publisher (born 1947)
October 19
Tommy Bartlett, basketball and tennis player and coach (born 1928)
Phil Chess, Polish-born record producer and music executive (born 1921)
October 20
William G. Bowen, academic and university president (born 1933)
Gail Cogdill, football player (born 1937)
Michael Massee, actor (born 1952)
Simone Schaller, Olympic hurdler (b, 1912)
October 21
Dan Johnston, lawyer and politician
Kevin Meaney, comedian and actor (born 1956)
October 22
Gavin MacFadyen, journalist and documentary filmmaker (born 1940)
Monarchos, racehorse and stallion (born 1998)
Sheri S. Tepper, author (born 1929)
Bob Vanatta, basketball coach (born 1918)
October 23
Jack Chick, cartoonist, publisher, and Christian fundamentalist (born 1924)
Tom Hayden, writer, activist, and politician (born 1939)
Bob Saunders, politician (born 1929)
October 24
Bobby Vee, pop singer and actor (born 1943)
Charles Wolf Jr., economist (born 1924)
October 25
Kevin Curran, television writer (born 1957)
Mel Haber, hotelier, restaurateur, and philanthropist (born 1935)
Bob Hoover, U.S. Air Force pilot (born 1922)
Burnet R. Maybank Jr., lawyer and politician (born 1924)
October 26
Donald C. Pogue, federal judge (born 1947)
Vic Rapp, football coach (born 1929)
October 27
Jim Eddy, football coach (born 1936)
Susan Lindquist, biologist (born 1949)
David Tyack, historian (born 1930)
John Zacherle, television and radio personality and voice actor (born 1918)
October 28Angeline Kopka, businesswoman and politician (born 1916)
October 29
Robert Belfanti, politician (born 1948)
Norman Brokaw, talent agent (born 1927)
E. Lee Hennessee, hedge fund manager
John Hicks, football player (born 1951)
Paul Luebke, politician (born 1946)
John D. Roberts, chemist (born 1918)
Barry Stout, politician (born 1936)
October 30
James Galanos, fashion designer (born 1924)
Tammy Grimes, actress and singer (born 1934)
Betty Ann Kennedy, contract bridge player (born 1930)
Gil Krueger, football coach (born 1929)
Don Marshall, actor (born 1936)
Curly Putman, songwriter (born 1930)
October 31
Natalie Babbitt, children's author and illustrator (born 1932)
Andy Hill, politician (born 1962)
Gene La Rocque, U.S. Navy admiral (born 1918)
Klaus Schulten, German-born biophysicist (born 1947)
November
November 1
Don Kates, lawyer and criminologist (born 1941)
Stanford Lipsey, newspaper publisher (born 1927)
John Orsino, baseball player (born 1938)
November 2
Max Alexander, comedian and actor (born 1953)
Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist (born 1932)
Jud Kinberg, film producer and screenwriter (born 1925)
Dolores Klosowski, baseball player (born 1923)
A. Thomas Kraabel, classical scholar (born 1934)
Jan Slepian, children's author and poet (born 1921)
November 3
Kay Starr, singer (born 1922)
Rick Steiner, theatrical producer (born 1946)
November 4
Eddie Carnett, baseball player (born 1916)
DeVan Dallas, politician (born 1926)
Allen Eller, soccer player (born 1976)
Eddie Harsch, Canadian-born rock musician (born 1957)
November 5
Ralph Cicerone, atmospheric scientist (born 1943)
W. Eugene Hansen, religious leader (born 1928)
Arnold Mesches, visual artist (born 1923)
November 7
Phil Georgeff, horse racing announcer (born 1931)
Julie Gregg, actress (born 1937)
Janet Reno, lawyer; U.S. Attorney General (1993–2001) (born 1938)
November 8
Yaffa Eliach, Polish-born historian and Holocaust survivor (born 1937)
Junius Foy Guin Jr., federal judge (born 1924)
Bill Lapham, football player (born 1934)
November 9
Greg Ballard, basketball player and assistant coach (born 1955)
Al Caiola, guitarist and composer (born 1920)
Russ Nixon, baseball player (born 1935)
November 10
David Adamany, political scientist and academic administrator (born 1936)
Bill Stanfill, football player (born 1947)
November 11
Victor Bailey, bassist (born 1960)
Greg Horton, football player (born 1951)
Claire Labine, television writer and producer (born 1934)
Aileen Mehle, gossip columnist (born 1918)
Robert Vaughn, actor (born 1932)
November 12
Jerry Dumas, cartoonist (born 1930)
Howard Ruff, economist and investment writer (born 1930)
Lupita Tovar, Mexican-American actress (born 1910)
November 13
Lary Kuharich, football coach (born 1945)
Billy Miller, music archivist (born 1954)
Leon Russell, musician and songwriter (born 1942)
November 14
Diana Balmori, landscape designer (born 1932)
Houston Conwill, sculptor (born 1947)
Holly Dunn, country music singer and songwriter (born 1957)
Bob Gain, football player (born 1929)
Roger Hobbs, novelist (born 1988)
Gwen Ifill, journalist, television newscaster, and author (born 1955)
Mahpiya Ska, albino buffalo (born 1996)
David Mancuso, club DJ (born 1944)
Gardnar Mulloy, tennis player (born 1913)
November 15
Bob Addis, baseball player (born 1925)
Mose Allison, jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer (born 1927)
Dwayne Andreas, businessman and political donor (born 1918)
Cliff Barrows, gospel singer and music director (born 1923)
Jules Eskin, cellist (born 1931)
Lisa Lynn Masters, actress (born 1964)
Milt Okun, record producer, arranger. conductor, and singer (born 1923)
Clift Tsuji, politician (born 1941)
November 16
Jay Wright Forrester, computer engineer (born 1918)
Melvin Laird, politician; U.S. Secretary of Defense (1969–1973) (born 1922)
Daniel Leab, German-born historian (born 1936)
Larry Tucker, politician (born 1935)
Mentor Williams, songwriter and record producer (born 1946)
November 17
Ruth Gruber, photojournalist and humanitarian (born 1911)
Whitney Smith, vexillologist and flag designer (born 1940)
November 18
Denton Cooley, heart surgeon (born 1920)
Sharon Jones, soul and funk singer (born 1956)
Yevgeni Lazarev, Russian-born actor (born 1937)
November 19
Monk Bonasorte, football player (born 1957)
John C. Carpenter, rancher and politician (born 1930)
Irving A. Fradkin, optometrist and philanthropist (born 1921)
Ida Levin, violinist (born 1963)
Paul Sylbert, production designer (born 1928)
November 20
Gene Guarilia, basketball player (born 1937)
Janellen Huttenlocher, psychologist (born 1932)
Hod O'Brien, jazz pianist (born 1936)
November 21Edward L. Kimball, legal scholar (born 1930)
November 23
Peggy Kirk Bell, golfer (born 1921)
Ralph Branca, baseball player (born 1926)
Joe Esposito, author and publisher (born 1938)
Jerry Tucker, child actor (born 1925)
November 24
Al Brodax, film and television producer (born 1926)
Bob Chase, radio sports announcer (born 1926)
John Ebersole, educator and author (born 1944)
Dave Ferriss, baseball player (born 1921)
Larry W. Fullerton, inventor
Florence Henderson, actress and singer (born 1934)
William Mandel, journalist and activist (born 1917)
November 25
Colonel Abrams, musician, dancer, and actor (born 1949)
Erich Bloch, German-born electrical engineer (born 1925)
Ron Glass, actor (born 1945)
Dwan Hurt, basketball coach (born 1963)
Jake Krull, politician (born 1938)
Pauline Oliveros, composer and accordionist (born 1932)
Richard Dean Rogers, federal judge (born 1921)
November 26
Harry Flournoy, basketball player (born 1943)
James E. McClellan, veterinarian and politician (born 1926)
Russell Oberlin, countertenor (born 1928)
Debra Saunders-White, educator (born 1957)
Fritz Weaver, actor (born 1925)
November 27
Dick Logan, football player (born 1930)
Tony Martell, music industry executive and philanthropist (born 1926)
Bruce Mazlish, historian (born 1923)
November 28
William Christenberry, photographer, painter, and sculptor (born 1936)
Grant Tinker, television executive (born 1926)
Keo Woolford, actor (born 1967)
November 29
Bill Bartmann, businessman (born 1948)
James Danieley, educator (born 1924)
Hardy Myers, lawyer and politician (born 1939)
November 30
Alice Drummond, actress (born 1928)
Royce Womble, football player (b, 1931)
December
December 1
Don Calfa, actor (born 1939)
Elisabeth Carron, operatic soprano (born 1922)
Joe McKnight, football player (born 1988)
December 2
Lyle Bouck, U.S. Army officer (born 1923)
H. Keith H. Brodie, psychiatrist and educator (born 1939)
Billy Chapin, child actor (born 1943)
Mark Gray, country singer (born 1952)
Sammy Lee, Olympic diver (born 1920)
Bosco Tjan, psychologist and neuroscientist (born 1966)
December 3
Newman Darby, inventor (born 1928)
Herbert Hardesty, jazz musician (born 1925)
Nancy Mairs, author (born 1943)
December 4
Leonard T. Connors, politician (born 1929)
Jack Rudin, real estate developer (born 1924)
Margaret Whitton, actress (born 1950)
December 5
Big Syke, rapper (born 1968)
Larry Roberts, football player (born 1963)
Rashaan Salaam, football player (born 1974)
Rodney Smith, photographer (born 1947)
December 6 – Dave Edwards, football player (born 1939)
December 7
Mike Kelly, politician (born 1942)
Elliott Schwartz, composer (born 1936)
December 8
Putsy Caballero, baseball player (born 1927)
John Glenn, aviator, astronaut, and U.S. Senator (born 1921)
Joseph Mascolo, actor (born 1929)
Thomas C. Oden, theologian (born 1931)
December 9
Edwin Benson, last native speaker of the Mandan language (born 1931)
Nola Ochs, centenarian (born 1911)
Jens Risom, Danish-born furniture designer (born 1916)
December 10
Ken Hechler, politician (born 1914)
Eric Hilton, hotelier and philanthropist (born 1933)
Miles Lord, federal judge (born 1919)
December 11
Sark Arslanian, football coach (born 1924)
Harry Jones, football player (born 1945)
Bob Krasnow, music industry executive (born 1935)
December 12
Barrelhouse Chuck, blues musician (born 1958)
Myron H. Bright, federal judge (born 1919)
Donald L. Corbin, judge and politician (born 1938)
Jimbo Elrod, football player (born 1954)
Shirley Hazzard, Australian-born author (born 1931)
Jim Lowe, singer and songwriter (born 1923)
Konrad Reuland, football player (born 1987)
Esther Wilkins, dentist (born 1916)
December 13
Lawrence Colburn, U.S. Army soldier (born 1949)
Roy Harrover, architect (born 1928)
Ralph Raico, historian (born 1936)
Thomas Schelling, economist (born 1921)
Alan Thicke, Canadian actor, songwriter, comedian, game and talk show host (b. 1947)
December 14
Bernard Fox, Welsh-born actor (born 1927)
Garrett K. Gomez, jockey (born 1972)
Karel Husa, Czech-born composer and conductor (born 1921)
December 15
Chuck Allen, football player (born 1939)
Howard Bingham, photographer (born 1939)
Fran Jeffries, actress and singer (born 1937)
Craig Sager, sportscaster (born 1951)
December 17
Benjamin A. Gilman, politician (born 1922)
William T. "Bill" Hanna, politician (born 1930)
Louis Harris, journalist, author, and opinion polling entrepreneur (born 1921)
Henry Heimlich, thoracic surgeon (born 1920)
William H. Hudnut III, politician (born 1932)
December 18
Brendan J. Dugan, banker and college administrator (born 1947)
Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-born actress and socialite (born 1917)
Sonny Moran, basketball coach (born 1926)
December 19
Phil Gagliano, baseball player (born 1941)
Dick Latessa, actor (born 1929)
December 20
Lawrence Borst, veterinarian and politician (born 1927)
Robert Eddins, football player (born 1988)
Toby Hemenway, educator and author (born 1952)
December 21
Sidney Drell, physicist (born 1926)
Weston Noble, music conductor and educator (born 1922)
December 22
Andre Martel, businessman and politician (born 1946)
Kenneth Snelson, sculptor and photographer (born 1927)
Lillian Walker, politician (born 1923)
December 23
Joyce Appleby, historian (born 1929)
Willa Kim, costume designer (born 1917)
Jim Lehew, baseball player (born 1937)
December 24
John Barfield, baseball player (born 1964)
Joseph Fitzmyer, Roman Catholic priest and biblical scholar (born 1920)
Edwin Reinecke, politician (born 1924)
Bronson Thayer, banker (born 1939)
December 25
Alphonse Mouzon, jazz drummer (born 1948)
Vera Rubin, astronomer (born 1928)
December 26
John J. Benoit, law enforcement officer and politician (born 1951)
Duck Edwing, cartoonist (born 1934)
Frances Gabe, inventor and centenarian (b. 1915)
Ricky Harris, comedian, actor, and film producer (born 1965)
George S. Irving, actor (born 1922)
Seth J. McKee, U.S. Air Force general (born 1916)
December 27
Chrissy Adams, attorney (born 1967)
Bruce DeHaven, football coach (born 1948)
Carrie Fisher, actress and writer (born 1956)
George A. Russell, university president (born 1921)
Barbara Tarbuck, actress (born 1942)
December 28
Bruce D. Porter, Mormon missionary and elder (born 1952)
Debbie Reynolds, actress, singer and dancer (born 1932)
Bernard Zaslav, classical violist (born 1926)
December 29
Chris Cannizzaro, baseball player (born 1938)
Laurie Carlos, playwright, theatre director, and performance artist (born 1949)
Keion Carpenter, football player (born 1977)
Arthur H. Cash, historian and biographer (born 1922)
LaVell Edwards, football coach (born 1930)
Balozi Harvey, community activist (born 1940)
December 30
Cara Rafaela, thoroughbred racehorse (born 1993)
Sutter Brown, Pembroke Welsh corgi (born 2003)
Rich Conaty, radio personality (born 1954)
Glen L. Rudd, Mormon missionary and elder (born 1918)
Huston Smith, religious scholar and philosopher (born 1919)
Matt Snorton, football player (born 1942)
Tyrus Wong, Chinese-born artist (born 1910)
December 31
William Christopher, actor (born 1932)
David Meltzer, poet and musician (born 1937)
See also
2016 in American music
2016 in American soccer
2016 in American television
List of American films of 2016
Timeline of United States history (2010–present)
References
External links
2010s in the United States
Years of the 21st century in the United States
United States
United States |
48876200 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital%20Invoice%20Customs%20Exchange%20%28DICE%29 | Digital Invoice Customs Exchange (DICE) | The Digital Invoice Customs Exchange (DICE) is a revenue protection idea developed to prevent tax evasion methods such as sales suppression in domestic trade and missing trader fraud, transfer pricing in cross-border trade. As such, the implementation of this idea enables Revenue Authority to have advance notice of every commercial transaction.
Definition of the term "DICE" is:
A technology-intensive tax compliance regimen for VAT/GST that utilizes invoice encryption to safeguard transactional data exchanged between seller and buyer in both domestic and import/export contexts while simultaneously notifying concerned jurisdictions of the transaction details.
How it works
A seller produces digital invoice containing minimum requirements as follows:
Name of the seller with unique Taxpayer Identification Number;
Name of the purchaser with unique Taxpayer Identification Number;
Description of good/service;
Unit price;
Quantity;
Tax rate;
Total price with tax.
Such prepared invoice, along with proper authentication of the seller, is uploaded to the Revenue Authority server (seller's jurisdiction) using DICE protocol for safekeeping and signature processing. Based on the information provided by the seller, system will apply verifiable electronic signature and send it back in the same manner as it was received. Seller will include electronic signature received in return to finalize invoice before dispatching it to customer who may verify the content of the invoice at any time by checking the signature using Revenue Authority's or DICE's web portal.
In case customer is registered outside of the seller's jurisdiction, before signing the invoice Revenue Authority will provide notice to the other jurisdiction announcing the customer's identity and content of the invoice using DICE protocol. Given the fact that DICE is being used in another jurisdiction (meaning there is an agreement between two jurisdictions to use DICE protocol and exchange digital keys for the purpose of secure communication), the received information will be processed to acknowledge positively that customer is registered in accordance with the applicable Laws, thus the transaction is considered legal. If customer is not registered in the database of the receiving jurisdiction, invoice will not be completed with valid electronic signature.
Benefits
DICE platform is based on open standard;
Secure communication between jurisdictions;
Transparency in trade between legal entities;
Disabling tax refund based on invalid documents;
Verification of original invoice content available at any time;
Taxpayer's audit trail is available at the Revenue Authority.
References
Documents
Richard T. Ainsworth and Goran Todorov on Digital Invoice Customs Exchange concept
External links
Lecture on DICE by Professor Richard T. Ainsworth
Business terms
Foreign trade of the United States
Taxation in the United States |
48880162 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESTOR%20%28encryption%29 | NESTOR (encryption) | NESTOR was a family of compatible, tactical, wideband secure voice systems developed by the U.S. National Security Agency and widely deployed during the Vietnam War through the late Cold War period of the 1980s. NESTOR consists of three systems. The KY-8 was used in vehicular and afloat applications; the KY-28 was the airborne version; and the KY-38 was the portable or man-pack model. About 30,000 NESTOR equipments were produced prior to their replacement by the VINSON secure voice family.
Keying was accomplished by setting each switch in a matrix of switches to one of several positions. This was done using a separate mechanical key loader (KYK-28) that had a matching matrix of pins that could be set to different heights as instructed by a key list. The key loader was pushed into a matrix of holes, one hole for each switch. The loader also had two larger index pins that also cocked a spring that would return each switch to their initial position when the door covering the hole matrix was reopened, zeroizing the equipment.
Vietnam War experience
NSA gave high priority to deploying NESTOR systems in Vietnam. Equipment was issued to field units in Vietnam beginning in 1965 with the KY-8 for stationary or vehicular use; the KY-8 was fully distributed by the third quarter of the fiscal year 1968. The KY-28 was issued for use in aircraft beginning in 1967, as was the KY-38 for man-pack or mobile use. The KY-38 was fully distributed in 1968. NESTOR was successfully used in some situations, but the overall experience was not good. NSA estimates that only about one in ten units were actually used. A variety of problems contributed to this rejection:
Voice quality was poor
NESTOR reduced the range of radios by 10%. While this did not happen in tests with carefully tuned radios, it did in the field.
The roughly 600-millisecond delay before NESTOR enabled radios would synchronize after each "push to talk" was intolerable to pilots in air-to-air combat.
While the KY-28 was easily incorporated in bomber (e.g., B-52), attack (e.g., AC-119, AC-130), large reconnaissance (e.g., P-3, RC-135) and command and control (e.g., EC-121, E-1, E-2) aircraft during its initial introduction, finding room for the KY-28 in fighter aircraft was difficult. The Navy improvised successfully, for example tucking KY-28s into the nose wheel well of F-4 Phantoms, while the Air Force initiated a formal modification program that took years to complete.
The ground version, KY-8 wouldn't work in the high temperatures common in the country, leading to jury-rigged cooling solutions, like wrapping units in wet burlap, or drilling unauthorized holes in the case.
The human portable version, KY-38, while a marvel of miniaturization for the time, was still heavy. The KY-38 plus AN/PRC-77 radio and spare batteries weighed about 54 pounds (24.5 kg). Experiments with having two Marines carry the separate units with a cable between worked poorly in the jungle. Many units decided that more ammunition was a better use of carrying capacity.
Lack of cables to connect NESTOR equipment to radios proved to be a major problem that was never fully solved due to lack of coordination between three separate organizations responsible for procuring the encryption systems, radios, and cables. One large batch of replacement cables was lost in a cargo plane crash.
NSA doctrine called for limiting the number of radios (250 at first, later 400) on a network with a common key, to limit the risk of key compromise. This meant units could sometimes not communicate with other units in the field in a highly mobile war. NSA eventually had to relax this restriction for air-ground communication since aircraft could go anywhere. Also, ground forces used FM radios, while aircraft used AM, limiting secure cross-communication to units equipped with compatible NESTOR-equipped radios.
Some commanders were concerned about carrying the classified-Confidential NESTOR units into combat, for fear that their military careers might be damaged by the loss of classified material. Some 1001 NESTOR units were lost during the war, mostly in downed aircraft and there was no record of anyone being disciplined for losing a unit "while trying to fight a war with it." Surveys suggested this issue was not a major factor, with fear that captured units might be used by the enemy being a greater concern. But it led to an ongoing controversy within NSA about the desirability of fielding cryptographic equipment that was not classified.
NSA cryptoperiod doctrine called for keys to be changed every 24 hours. Initially, these key changes took place at midnight, local time, taking all secure radios out of service for several minutes. This timing proved particularly inopportune because most contacts with opposing forces took place at night. The key-change time was later changed to 0600 to avoid this problem.
While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and NVA would not be able to exploit unsecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they were able to understand the American's jargon and informal codes in realtime and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions.
See also
NSA encryption systems
References
External links
http://www.nf6x.net/2009/03/ky-38-nestor-voice-encryption-device-demilitarized/
National Security Agency encryption devices
Military equipment of the Vietnam War |
48882494 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20PBKDF2%20implementations | List of PBKDF2 implementations | List of software that implements or uses the PBKDF2 key derivation standard.
Implementations
wolfSSL
Libgcrypt
Bash implementation
Crypto-JS Javascript implementation
openssl's C implementation
OpenBSD's C implementation
PolarSSL's C implementation
CyaSSL's C implementation
ActionScript 3.0 implementation
.NET Framework's implementation
Delphi/Free Pascal implementation
Erlang implementation
Go implementation
PBKDF2 for Haxe
JavaScript implementations slow, less slow, fast, benchmark
Java implementation (PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256)
Python implementation
Perl implementation (large), (small), (tiny), Native Perl Implementation – no dependency hell
Ruby's standard library
Ruby implementation
Rust implementation
REBOL2 implementation
PHP implementations: native (added in v5.5.0), pure PHP implementation
Scala implementation
Common Lisp implementation (Ironclad)
Systems that use PBKDF2
GNU_GRUB to protect the bootloader password
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) used to secure Wi-Fi wireless networks
Microsoft Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI)
OpenDocument encryption used in OpenOffice.org
WinZip's AES Encryption scheme.
Keeper for password hashing.
LastPass for password hashing.
1Password for password hashing.
Enpass for password hashing.
Dashlane for password hashing.
Bitwarden for password hashing.
Standard Notes for password hashing.
Apple's iOS mobile operating system, for protecting user passcodes and passwords.
Mac OS X Mountain Lion for user passwords
The Django web framework, as of release 1.4.
The Odoo ERP platform
The MODX content management framework, as of version 2.0.
The encryption and decryption schema of Zend Framework, to generate encryption and authentication keys.
Cisco IOS and IOS XE Type 4 password hashes
Firefox Sync for client-side password stretching
Disk encryption software
Filesystem encryption in the Android operating system, as of version 3.0.
FileVault (Mac OS X) from Apple Computer
FreeOTFE (Windows and Pocket PC PDAs); also supports mounting Linux (e.g. LUKS) volumes under Windows
LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) (Linux)
TrueCrypt (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X)
VeraCrypt (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X)
CipherShed (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X)
DiskCryptor (Windows)
Cryptographic disk (NetBSD)
GEOM ELI module for FreeBSD
softraid crypto for OpenBSD
EncFS (Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X) since v1.5.0
GRUB2 (boot loader)
Booster (Secure initramfs for Linux)
SafeGuard Enterprise (Windows and Mac OSX)
Boxcryptor Encryption Software based in EFS
References
Key derivation functions
PBKDF2 implementations |
48887387 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhima%20Credit | Zhima Credit | Zhima Credit (), also known as Sesame Credit, is a private credit scoring and loyalty program system developed by Ant Group, an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It uses data from Alibaba's services to compile its score. Customers receive a score based on a variety of factors based on social media interactions and purchases carried out on Alibaba Group websites or paid for using its affiliate Ant Financial's Alipay mobile wallet. The rewards of having a high score include easier access to loans from Ant Financial and having a more trustworthy profile on e-commerce sites within the Alibaba Group.
History
Zhima Credit was introduced on 28 January 2015. to be the first credit agency in China to use a score system for individual users, using both online and offline information. It was developed when the People's Bank of China lifted the restrictions and let non-bank institutes conduct personal credit information operations.
Usage
Baihe.com, a Chinese matchmaking company, uses Zhima Credit data as part of its service.
Zhima Credit's scoring system is roughly modeled after FICO scoring in the United States and Schufa in Germany.
Technology platform
In 2015, Zhima Credit published information on the methodology behind its currently running beta version.
Zhima Credit's scoring system is roughly modeled after FICO scoring in the United States and Schufa in Germany.
Data collection
The corporate network of Zhima Credit, led by the Alibaba Group, spans over insurance, loan, historical payment, dating, shopping and mobility data. It collects data from all sources by utilizing the regulatory freedom it built from objects and social networks, public and private institutions and offline and online. The system is powered by "data from more than 300 million real-name registered users and 37 million small businesses that buy and sell on Alibaba Group marketplaces". Due to Zhima Credit’s close collaboration with the government, it also has access to all public documents, such as official identity and financial records.
Data distribution
Zhima Credit emphasizes its strict privacy and data protection, ensured through encryption and segregation. The firm also states that data is only gathered upon knowledge and consent of the user. According to Ant Financial, users’ scores can currently only be shared with their authorization or by themselves.
Data Structure
Big data and behavioral analytics are building blocks for the system. Data fragments are classified into five categories:
Credit History: Reflects users’ past payment history and level of debt
Fulfillment Capacity: Shows users’ ability to fulfill contract obligations
Personal Characteristics: Examine the extent and accuracy of personal information
Behavior and Preferences: Reveal users’ online behavior
Interpersonal Relationships: Reflect the online characteristics of a users’ friends
The specifications of the algorithm that determine the classification, as well as the analytical parameters and indicators remain confidential. It is unclear is whether data is structured to build in tolerances for errors, for example the likelihood of a unit of data being false or from an unreliable source.
Data visualization
The five categories that Zhima Credit classifies its data into, have different weightings attached to them. Based on those, an algorithm determines a citizen's final citizen score, ranked among others. The scores in the ranking range from 350 (lowest trustworthiness) to 950 (highest trustworthiness). From 600 up, one can gain privileges, while lower scorers will revoke them. According to current plans, the final score and ranking will be publicly available.
Relation to Social Credit System
The Social Credit System was introduced by the Chinese government and Alibaba promotes Sesame credit as a technology partner of the government's project. Initially, it was unclear how closely tied the Sesame credit is in relation to the national social credit system.
In November 2017, Zhima Credit's general manager, Hu Tao, stated that no Zhima Credit data is shared with the Chinese government or other third parties without a user's consent. She also denied the company monitors social media content, or any other method, to assess a customer's 'qualitative characteristics' for Zhima Credit.
In 2017, the Chinese government concluded that none of the pilots, which includes Sesame credit, will receive authorization as the official credit reporting system, due to concerns on conflicts of interest.
See also
Tencent - also offers a credit scoring system
References
External links
Credit scoring
Financial services companies established in 2015
2015 establishments in China
Alibaba Group |
48909159 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine | Widevine | Widevine is a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology from Google used by the Google Chrome, Brave and Firefox web browsers (including some derivatives), Android MediaDRM, Android TV, and other consumer electronics devices. Widevine technology supports various encryption schemes and hardware security to restrict consumer access to distributed video content according to rules defined by content owners. Widevine mainly provides a Content Decryption Module (CDM) as a client to Google Chrome and other browsers and devices. Widevine is free to use by content providers and as such does not charge any fees for license generation or device integration.
Security levels
The three Widevine security levels are:
L1―no resolution or HDR restriction; highest level of protection. Both cryptography and media processing operations occur in a trusted execution environment (TEE).
L2―(typically) 540p resolution limit. Only cryptography operations are executed in a TEE, not media processing.
L3―(typically) 480p resolution limit. Software-based DRM only.
Usage
Widevine DRM is used with the Chromium-based proprietary web browsers and on Android. It supports MPEG-DASH and HLS. Google Chrome and Chrome OS make use of Encrypted Media Extensions and Media Source Extensions with Widevine, where it is used
to decrypt content. Over thirty chipsets, six major desktop and mobile operating systems, and Google properties such as Chromecast and Android TV have adopted Widevine.
Companies including Amazon Prime Video, BBC, Hulu, Netflix, Spotify and Disney+ use Widevine DRM to manage the distribution of premium content.
It is also used by Firefox since v47, released in 2016, enabled by default on Microsoft Windows and optionally on Linux; it can be disabled and uninstalled in the browser settings. Prior to that, Mozilla used Adobe's Primetime DRM library for some versions.
Circumvention
Widevine L3 has been circumvented on at least two occasions and researchers have argued that it is inherently insecure.
Users
Open-source projects
Shaka Player – Google-developed open-source HTML5 web-based player available on GitHub.
Shaka Packager – Google-developed open-source content packaging solution available on GitHub. The packager supports MPEG-DASH and HLS for VOD or linear based content.
Shaka Streamer – Google-developed simple configuration-file-based tool for preparing streaming media content.
Electron software framework – Widevine partnered with castLabs to integrate the Widevine client into the Electron framework for use with desktop application development. The integration, however, still requires anyone who wants to distribute/use it in their application to sign a license agreement with Google.
Kodi – starting from version 18, the add-on InputStream Helper installs Widevine automatically on supported platforms for DRM playback.
Criticism
In 2019, a developer tried to bundle Widevine in an Electron/Chromium-based application for video playing and did not get any response from Google after asking for a license agreement, effectively blocking DRM usage in the project. He later got the reply:
The same happened to other Electron projects.
Developers of a competing browser to Chrome, Brave (a fork of Chromium itself), also had issues during their integration due to Netflix authentication on the reliability of the Brave browser.
History
Widevine Technologies was a vendor of digital rights management software. One of its early technologies included a software system that replaced smart cards that eliminated the cost and logistical complexity of the card's distribution and introduced the abilities to process more sophisticated rights. It was purchased by Google in 2010.
References
External links
Defunct software companies of the United States
Digital rights management systems
Google software
2010 mergers and acquisitions |
48918767 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOBUS | NOBUS | NOBUS ("Nobody But Us") is a term used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to describe a known security vulnerability that it believes the United States (US) alone can exploit. As technology and encryption advance, entities around the globe are gravitating towards common platforms and systems, such as Microsoft, Linux, and Apple. This convergence in usage creates a conflict between patching system vulnerabilities to protect one's own information, and exploiting the same system vulnerabilities to discover information about an adversary. To handle this conflict, the NSA developed the NOBUS system in which they evaluate the likelihood that an adversary would be able to exploit a known vulnerability in a system. If they determine the vulnerability is only exploitable by the NSA for reasons such as computational resources, budget, or skill set, they label it as NOBUS and will not move to patch it, but rather leave it open to exploit against current or future targets. Broadly, the concept of NOBUS refers to the gap in signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities between the US and the rest of the world. Critics believe that this approach to signals intelligence poses more of a threat to the US than an advantage as the abilities of other entities progress and the market for buying vulnerabilities evolves.
History
During the early 1900’s, protecting one’s own communications while intercepting the communications of adversaries was not in conflict. World War I (WWI) and World War II (WWII) signals intelligence contained a mixture of eavesdropping on radio communications, and breaking target cipher messages, actions that did not weaken the security of one's own information. The Allies' Operation Ultra during WWII was responsible for breaking Enigma, the German cipher device used to transmit military messages. By breaking Enigma, the security of the Allies cipher machine, SIGABA, was not influenced, since they were separate systems using separate technology.As technology advanced, this separation between offensive SIGINT, the act of intercepting adversaries communications, and defensive SIGINT, the act of protecting one's own messages, began to disappear. The advancement of telecommunications, the internet, and large corporations such as Microsoft and Apple, meant that often times both sides of a conflict use the same system.As such, if a group discovers a vulnerability in a target's system, it also likely means they've discovered a vulnerability in their own system. Disclosing the vulnerability for fixing weakens intelligence, while withholding information about the vulnerability weakens security, making the decision of what to do with a discovered exploit incredibly complicated.
The intelligence alliance group known as the Five Eyes, consisting of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, became uniquely situated in the world to take advantage of the progress of technology for their SIGINT abilities. Almost all of the communications across the globe physically pass through one of the Five Eyes, allowing for a physical advantage in their eavesdropping abilities. This geographical positioning was one of the reasons that the US was leading the SIGINT charge early on.
In addition, many technology companies were US companies, giving the US legal power over the corporations that other entities and governments lacked. An example of this NOBUS advantage is the NSA program known as PRISM, which gives them the ability to demand information from companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others, about their targets.
Former NSA Director Michael Hayden has since acknowledged the concept of NOBUS:You look at a vulnerability through a different lens if even with the vulnerability it requires substantial computational power or substantial other attributes and you have to make the judgment who else can do this? If there's a vulnerability here that weakens encryption but you still need four acres of Cray computers in the basement in order to work it you kind of think "NOBUS" and that's a vulnerability we are not ethically or legally compelled to try to patch – it's one that ethically and legally we could try to exploit in order to keep Americans safe from others.
The commoditization of the Zero-Day exploit market changed the landscape of SIGINT in the 2000's. A Zero-Day (or 0-day) exploit is a software vulnerability that the software developer is not aware of and therefore has no immediate fix. In other words, when the exploit is used to steal information or corrupt a system, the developers have zero-days to fix it. Zero-day exploits were being developed and sold by a few individuals in the 1990's, but in the early 2000s companies dedicated to buying exploits of hackers around the world began popping up. This grey-market for zero-day exploits allowed anyone in the world with enough funds to buy exploits to commonly used systems.
In 2013, American whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked NSA documents that revealed that the NSA was spending considerable money in the zero-day market to accumulate exploits, likely the biggest buyer in the field. The ability to spend top dollar for exploits is considered a NOBUS capability since many other entities often cannot spend that much on an exploit. By 2012, a single iOS bug could earn as much as $250,000 on the grey market. In 2021, it is known that the NSA spends 10 times as much on offensive SIGINT than defensive, with 100 employees working on offense for every 1 employee on defense.
The Snowden leaks also revealed an NSA program in cooperation with its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) known as Muscular. This program involved tapping into the underwater internet cables of companies including Google and Yahoo. This collection of information as it travels unencrypted between internal company servers is known as "upstream" collection and the corporations affected were completely unaware of it. Muscular took place on British territory, exemplifying a NOBUS capability given that the NSA and GCHQ were allies and working together on the program.
US government response
Following the Edward Snowden leaks, in 2014 United States President Obama addressed the SIGINT tactics of the NSA. In his address he announces that he will be strengthening executive oversight of intelligence with the hope that individual security, foreign relations, and the intentions of corporations can all be considered. He also announced that he will be appointing a new senior official at the White House responsible for implementing new privacy safeguards. However, the usage of zero-day exploits was not directly discussed, with the focus of the address being on the NSA's collection of phone records within the US.
In 2014, a few months after President Obama's SIGINT address, a bug in popular encryption tool OpenSSL was discovered. This exploit, known as Heartbleed, permeated software around the world, including the US Pentagon. Following the discovery of Heartbleed, Michael Daniel, cybersecurity coordinator of the Obama administration, publicly addressed the procedure used by the NSA to determine what vulnerabilities to keep and what to disclose. Daniel listed numerous points that the agency took into consideration, namely how much harm the exploit could cause if disclosed and whether the intelligence could be gathered in another way. In addition, Daniel highlights that if the vulnerability was kept to be used, it would only be temporary and would be turned over to be patched after a short period of use by the agency. This was the first time the US government publicly acknowledged the use of zero-day exploits in SIGINT. This protocol outlined by Daniel in 2014 is known as the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP).
Criticism
Critics argue that the NSA, and therefore the US, is no longer as significantly ahead of the rest of the world in SIGINT as it once was. Thus, it is dangerous for the NSA to leave security vulnerabilities open just because it is believed to be NOBUS. A leaked NSA memo from 2012 is quoted saying "it is becoming apparent that other nation-states are honing their skill[s] and joining the scene", evidence that the NSA is aware of the ever closing gap in capabilities. In August of 2016, a group of still unknown hackers known as the Shadow Brokers leaked NSA code that revealed the exact tools of the agency, effectively giving NOBUS capabilities to anyone who got their hands on the code. In April of 2017, the Shadow Brokers went further and leaked twenty of the most effective zero-day exploits the agency had developed and collected. Following this leak, former NSA director Michael Hayden, who stood by the agency through the Snowden leaks in 2013, said he could not "defend an agency having powerful tools if it cannot protect the tools and keep them in its own hands".
By leaking the NSA's cyber arsenal, the Shadow Brokers also revealed that the NSA was keeping low level vulnerabilities that did not require extensive equipment or experience. Some of the tools were reportedly so easy to use they were essentially "point and shoot". These vulnerabilities are, by definition, not NOBUS, and keeping them in the NSA cyber arsenal rather than disclosing them so they could be fixed threatens the security of innocent people around the world who used the vulnerable software. The discovery that the NSA was withholding low level exploits for years directly contradicted the VEP outlined in 2014 by then cyber security coordinator Michael Daniel.
The Zero-Day exploit market has also caused the NSA to come under fire. Vulnerabilities purchased on the grey-market are distinctly not NOBUS since anyone with the funds has the ability to purchase them. There is also no way to ensure if an entity sells a vulnerability to one group, it won't turn around and sell it to another. Critics are therefore concerned that keeping the vulnerabilities open instead of patching them threatens the security of innocent people who use the system, since it cannot be confirmed who has access to them.
Another common criticism of the NOBUS system is that since the NSA is exploiting vulnerabilities in systems used by US citizens and harvesting data from servers hosted in the US, there are ethical and legal concerns about the ability of the agency to avoid collecting data from US citizens.
Critics have also commented that there is no evidence that NOBUS strategy keeps people safe. In the past it has been reported that NOBUS has stopped 50 terrorist attacks, and that number was then amended to 1 or 2. In 2017, a study funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recommended that the Intelligence Community shift away from signals intelligence as a source of information. Encryption methods are quickly becoming too advanced to break and laws in the US are prioritizing the privacy of American citizens over intelligence collection, meaning that the NSA and other intelligence agencies are facing an uphill battle for signals intelligence.
References
National Security Agency |
49031124 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrokey | Nitrokey | Nitrokey is an open-source USB key used to enable the secure encryption and signing of data. The secret keys are always stored inside the Nitrokey which protects against malware (such as computer viruses) and attackers. A user-chosen PIN and a tamper-proof smart card protect the Nitrokey in case of loss and theft. The hardware and software of Nitrokey are open-source. The free software and open hardware enables independent parties to verify the security of the device. Nitrokey is supported on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD.
History
In 2008 Jan Suhr, Rudolf Böddeker, and another friend were travelling and found themselves looking to use encrypted emails in internet cafés, which meant the secret keys had to remain secure against computer viruses. Some proprietary USB dongles existed at the time, but lacked in certain ways. Consequently, they established as an open source project - Crypto Stick - in August 2008 which grew to become Nitrokey. It was a spare-time project of the founders to develop a hardware solution to enable the secure usage of email encryption. The first version of the Crypto Stick was released on 27 December 2009. In late 2014, the founders decided to professionalize the project, which was renamed Nitrokey. Nitrokey's firmware was audited by German cybersecurity firm Cure53 in May 2015, and its hardware was audited by the same company in August 2015. The first four Nitrokey models became available on 18 September 2015.
Technical features
Several Nitrokey models exist and the Nitrokey Pro is the flagship model. It contains the following features:
A secure key storage to support OpenPGP (popular with individuals) and S/MIME (popular with businesses) email encryption standards. Nitrokey can also be used with various 3rd party applications such as TrueCrypt and VeraCrypt for disk encryption.
One-time passwords (which are similar to TANs and used as a secondary security measure in addition to ordinary passwords). It supports the HMAC-based One-time Password Algorithm (HOTP, RFC 4226) and Time-based One-time Password Algorithm (TOTP, RFC 6238), which are compatible with Google Authenticator.
Client Certificate Authentication is used to administrate servers securely via SSH, access Virtual Private Networks via OpenVPN.
Password Safe stores encrypted static passwords inside the Nitrokey.
The upcoming Nitrokey Storage provides the same features as the Nitrokey Pro and additionally contains an encrypted mass storage.
Characteristics
Nitrokey's secret keys are stored securely internally.
A user-chosen PIN protects in case of loss and theft.
Nitrokey's tamper-proof design protects it from sophisticated physical attacks.
RSA keys of up to 4096 bit and AES-256 are supported.
It is supported for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD.
It is compatible with many popular software like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, and OpenSSH.
The secure implementation of the Nitrokey is published as open source and open hardware to enable independent reviews of the source code and hardware layout and to ensure the absence of back doors and other security flaws.
Nitrokey's security is not dependent upon secret keys stored centrally with the device manufacturer.
Nitrokey is published as open source software, free software, and open hardware.
Devices
Nitrokey Start
Nitrokey HSM
Nitrokey Pro
Nitrokey Storage 16GB
Nitrokey Storage 32GB
Nitrokey Storage 64GB
Nitrokey FIDO U2F
Nitrokey FIDO2
Philosophy
Nitrokey's developers believe that proprietary systems cannot provide strong security and that security systems need to be open source. For instance there have been cases in which NSA intercepts security devices being shipped and implanted backdoors into it. In 2011 RSA was hacked and secret keys of securID tokens been stolen which allowed hackers to circumvent their authentication. As revealed in 2010, many FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified USB storage devices from various manufacturers could easily be cracked by using a default password. Nitrokey, because of being open source and because of its transparency, wants to provide high secure system and avoid security issues which its proprietary rivals were facing. Nitrokey's mission is to provide the best Open Source security key to protect the digital lives of its users.
References
External links
Authentication methods
Computer access control
Open hardware organizations and companies
Open hardware electronic devices
Open-source hardware |
49111333 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double%20Ratchet%20Algorithm | Double Ratchet Algorithm | In cryptography, the Double Ratchet Algorithm (previously referred to as the Axolotl Ratchet) is a key management algorithm that was developed by Trevor Perrin and Moxie Marlinspike in 2013. It can be used as part of a cryptographic protocol to provide end-to-end encryption for instant messaging. After an initial key exchange it manages the ongoing renewal and maintenance of short-lived session keys. It combines a cryptographic so-called "ratchet" based on the Diffie–Hellman key exchange (DH) and a ratchet based on a key derivation function (KDF), such as a hash function, and is therefore called a double ratchet.
The algorithm is considered self-healing because under certain conditions it prevents an attacker from accessing the cleartext of future messages after having compromised one of the user's keys. New session keys are exchanged after a few rounds of communication. This effectively forces the attacker to intercept all communication between the honest parties, since they lose access as soon as a key exchange occurs that is not intercepted. This property was later named Future Secrecy, or Post-Compromise Security.
Etymology
"Axolotl" was in reference to the salamander's self-healing properties. The term "ratchet" in cryptography is used in analogy to a mechanical ratchet. In the mechanical sense, a ratchet only allows advancement in one direction; a cryptographic ratchet only allows keys to be generated from the previous key. Unlike a mechanical ratchet, however, each state is unique.
Origin
The Double Ratchet Algorithm was developed by Trevor Perrin and Moxie Marlinspike (Open Whisper Systems) in 2013 and introduced as part of the Signal Protocol in February 2014. The Double Ratchet Algorithm's design is based on the DH ratchet that was introduced by Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) and combines it with a symmetric-key ratchet modeled after the Silent Circle Instant Messaging Protocol (SCIMP). The ratchet was initially named after the critically endangered aquatic salamander axolotl, which has extraordinary self-healing capabilities. In March 2016, the developers renamed the Axolotl Ratchet as the Double Ratchet Algorithm to better differentiate between the ratchet and the full protocol, because some had used the name Axolotl when referring to the Signal Protocol.
Properties
The Double Ratchet Algorithm features properties that have been commonly available in end-to-end encryption systems for a long time: encryption of contents on the entire way of transport as well as authentication of the remote peer and protection against manipulation of messages. As a hybrid of DH and KDF ratchets, it combines several desired features of both principles. From OTR messaging it takes the properties of forward secrecy and automatically reestablishing secrecy in case of compromise of a session key, forward secrecy with a compromise of the secret persistent main key, and plausible deniability for the authorship of messages. Additionally, it enables session key renewal without interaction with the remote peer by using secondary KDF ratchets. An additional key-derivation step is taken to enable retaining session keys for out-of-order messages without endangering the following keys.
It is said to detect reordering, deletion, and replay of sent messages, and improve forward secrecy properties in comparison to OTR messaging.
Combined with public key infrastructure for the retention of pregenerated one-time keys (prekeys), it allows for the initialization of messaging sessions without the presence of the remote peer (asynchronous communication). The usage of triple Diffie–Hellman key exchange (3-DH) as initial key exchange method improves the deniability properties. An example of this is the Signal Protocol, which combines the Double Ratchet Algorithm, prekeys, and a 3-DH handshake. The protocol provides confidentiality, integrity, authentication, participant consistency, destination validation, forward secrecy, backward secrecy (aka future secrecy), causality preservation, message unlinkability, message repudiation, participation repudiation, and asynchronicity. It does not provide anonymity preservation, and requires servers for the relaying of messages and storing of public key material.
Functioning
A client renews session key material in interaction with the remote peer using Diffie–Hellman ratchet whenever possible, otherwise independently by using a hash ratchet. Therefore, with every message a client using the double ratchet advances one of two hash ratchets (one for sending, one receiving) which get seeded with a common secret from a DH ratchet. At the same time it tries to use every opportunity to provide the remote peer with a new public DH value and advance the DH ratchet whenever a new DH value from the remote peer arrives. As soon as a new common secret is established, a new hash ratchet gets initialized.
As cryptographic primitives, the Double Ratchet Algorithm uses
for the DH ratchet
Elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) with Curve25519,
for message authentication codes (MAC, authentication)
Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) based on SHA-256,
for symmetric encryption
the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), partially in Cipher Block Chaining mode (CBC) with padding as per PKCS #5 and partially in Counter mode (CTR) without padding,
for the hash ratchet
HMAC.
Applications
The following is a list of applications that use the Double Ratchet Algorithm or a custom implementation of it:
ChatSecure
Conversations
Cryptocat
Facebook Messenger
G Data Secure Chat
Gajim
GNOME Fractal
Google Allo
Haven
Pond
Element
Signal
Silent Phone
Skype
Viber
WhatsApp
Wire
Notes
References
Literature
External links
Specification by Open Whisper Systems
"Advanced cryptographic ratcheting", abstract description by Moxie Marlinspike
Olm: implementation in C++ under the Apache license
Cryptographic algorithms |
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