[GIZ] A 36-year-old Chinese national was arrested in Los Angeles this week in connection with a computer hacking conspiracy involving malware linked to the 2014 US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach.
Yu Pingan of Shanghai, China, was arrested on Wednesday while traveling at Los Angeles International Airport. Also identified by the hacker pseudonym "GoldSun," Yu has been charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and is further accused of conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States.
According to an August 21 indictment , filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, Yu collaborated with others, including two unnamed individuals who have not been charged, to acquire and use malware to facilitate cyberattacks against at least four unnamed US companies. The incitement was accompanied by an affidavit signed by an agent assigned to a cybercrime squad at the FBI San Diego Field Office.
The FBI has identified Yu's co-conspirators as living in the People's Republic of China. A spokesperson for the agency could not be immediately reached for a comment.
In a timeline laid out in the indictment, Yu is accused of discussing the installation of a remote access trojan, or RAT, on an unidentified company in June 2011. Roughly a year later, a conspirator allegedly installed malicious files on the network of a San Diego-based company. The same company was allegedly attacked again on or before December 3, 2013.
#1
Are these the same long-standing trade partners and 'friends' who continue to militarize the South China Sea and cannot keep their NORK dog curbed ?
#4
2014 US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach... installation of a remote access trojan, or RAT, on an unidentified company in June 2011. Roughly a year later, a conspirator allegedly installed malicious files on the network of a San Diego-based company. The same company was allegedly attacked again on or before December 3, 2013
2011, 2012, 2013, 2014... and it took until 2017 to do something. Perhaps the Soetoro-era intelligence community and the Justice Department probably had other, more pressing, matters.
[DailyMail] Update from ABC News at 2:10 p.m. EDT:The U.S. Navy said Thursday night divers had recovered a second body from the USS John S. McCain, which struck a merchant ship near Singapore on Monday.
The sailor was identified as Electronics Technician 3rd Class Dustin Louis Doyon, 26, a native of Connecticut.
Divers found the body of a sailor in the ship's flooded compartments earlier in the day on Thursday. The Navy identified him as Electronic Technician 3rd Class Kenneth Aaron Smith, 22, of New Jersey.
Eight sailors remain missing following the collision. The Navy said more divers and equipment arrived overnight Thursday to help with the search.
Crews from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia spent more than 80 hours looking for the sailors, who went missing on Monday morning after the McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, collided with a Liberian-flagged tanker, the Alnic MC.
According to the Navy, the search area covered approximately 2,100 square miles east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. The McCain is now docked at Changi Naval Base in Singapore.
A British farmer thanked firefighters who rescued a litter of piglets and two sows from a barn fire in February by giving them sausages made out of the animals, according to local reports. MMMM, Bacon!!!
Farmer Rachel Rivers thanked the Pewsey fire station with sausages from the pigs they rescued six months ago when a barn on her farm in England caught fire, the BBC reported. Very nearly had roast suckling pig.
Rivers told the BBC she promised the firefighters she would bring them some sausage from the pigs, which were reared for meat. Why else would you raise pigs?
"I gave those animals the best quality of life I could ever give until the time they go to slaughter, and they go into the food chain," she said. My food pyramid. Pork, Alcohol, Salt, Sugar.
The Pewsey fire station shared photos of the sausages, which have since been deleted, and thanked Rivers for the meat, according to the BBC.
The fire service saved these pigs bacon in February, now they've had them as sausages!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/25/2017 00:00 ||
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[RADIOSHABELLE] Three members of an Exeter street gang who kidnapped and raped a woman they believed was working for a rival gang have been sentenced to a total of 61 years in jug on 22nd August.
Abdiraman Kadir, Abdiraman Abukar and Mohammed Ibrahim were also sentenced for wounding with intent in a knife attack carried out on the same day as the rapes.
Exeter Crown Court heard the men, who were all of Somali heritage, were members of the ’Chyna Crew’ gang, which regularly travelled from Birmingham to Exeter to sell drugs. They were involved in an ongoing dispute with a rival group over the supply of Class A drugs in Exeter.
On 23 February 2017, the three men targeted a woman who acted as a ’runner’ for a rival gang and set about humiliating and assaulting her.
They made her drink water from a toilet and kiss the bottom of their feet. The trio threatened to set her on fire and stab her before taking her to a second address in Exeter where she was raped by all three men.
The court heard that during this time, the three defendants left the flat where they repeatedly stabbed a man they believed was linked to a rival drugs gang. Their victim suffered serious injuries to his legs and lower body.
A fourth defendant, Amber Olivia, who acted as a ’runner’ for the group to deliver drugs, was convicted of possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply and conspiracy to cause GBH.
"Kadir, Abukar and Ibrahim launched a chilling day of violence in two assassinations in Exeter, carefully organised to protect their gang’s reputation. All three defendants denied the offences but prosecutors were able to demonstrate their individual roles in the kidnap, false imprisonment and rape and the knife attack."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Three hots and a cot for life. That's what they came here for.
Both sides in the ongoing conflict between Russian backed militants and Ukrainian soldiers have agreed to a "Back to School" ceasefire, set to begin at midnight Friday, August 25th, according to Russian language news accounts.
The ceasefire is expected to last for a week, to August 31st.
The region was supposed to have a Harvest Time ceasefire July 31st, but that broke down quickly.
Both sides have been party to numerous ceasefires since the first one in the fall of 2014, when the war in southeastern Ukraine went hot; but both sides have done very little maintain the ceasefires.
As with most modern ceasefires, both sides have been getting their licks in before the deadline.
The Ukrainian ministry of defense said in a news report posted on lb.ua that rebel mortar fire was reported in Lugansk, near Novoaleksandrovka and Katerinovka.
Rebel mortar fire was reported at Avdievka and further south, at Chermalyk.
According to rebel media, Ukrainian medium and heavy mortar fire were reported at Gorlovka, and near Mariupol.
A separate report posted on Colonel Igor Gikin's V Kontackte page, quoting unidentified militant spokesmen, said that Ukrainian artillery hit Yasinovataya and the airport. Small arms fighting was reported in Spartak, which is directly adjacent to the Donetsk airport and in Lugansk at Kalinovo.
A later rebel news release on the website of the Donetsk ministry of defense noted that Ukrainian heavy guns have been silent since midnight.
[IsraelTimes] Four bands from Arab countries, as well as musicians from Finland, UK, pull out because of $600 sponsorship by Jewish state.
In which Israel discovers an inexpensive technique for reducing the market exposure of joo-hating competitors. Such an amusing win-lose situation the idiot musicians created for themselves.
[DAWN] An official of Sindh Police was among the five suspected kidnappers killed in a shootout in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... on Wednesday evening.
The shootout had occurred during a police operation to recover the kidnapped son of PPP MPA Ghulam Murtaza Baloch. He was safely recovered from a house in Gadap, police had said.
On Thursday, Malir SSP Rao Anwar Ahmed confirmed that Mukhtiar Ali, a policeman from Shikarpur, was among the five killed.
According to the SSP, Ali had come to Karachi earlier this year while the census was underway and had since been involved in cases of kidnapping for ransom.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Several cities in northern India are under a security lockdown ahead of tomorrow's verdict in a rape trial involving controversial and hugely popular spiritual leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who has been accused of sexual harassment by two of his female followers.
Tens of thousands of followers of the flamboyant guru and leader of the quasi-religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda have gathered in the town of Panchkula where a Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) special court is set to announce the verdict on Friday.
The guru, who calls himself Saint Dr Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan, has denied the charges of raping two of his female followers. The case was investigated by CBI, India's top agency.
The self-styled guru was also under investigation in 2015 for allegedly encouraging 400 followers to undergo castrations at his ashram so they could get closer to God.
Men and women, some with children and babies, have spread out blankets and bed sheets, and settled down around the court complex, which is surrounded by security, to wait for the verdict.
Nearly 6,000 police and paramilitary soldiers have spread out in Panchkula alone and thousands more have fanned out in nearby areas fearing violence in the event of a guilty verdict. More troops have been kept on standby.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] A Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... -London (MQM-L) activist declared dead by the party and his family was presented alive at a Rangers presser on Thursday to 'expose the MQM-L's anti-state propaganda'.
Pakistain Rangers Sindh Spokesperson Maj Qambar Raza, speaking at the presser at Rangers Headquarters in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , said that the MQM-L on Aug 7 issued a blurb accusing the paramilitary force of kidnapping, torturing and killing the worker.
Maj Raza said that Mohammed Yusuf, alias Thelewala, of MQM-L Unit 125 in Qasbah Aligarh was, according to the party, kidnapped allegedly by the Rangers on July 17. Subsequently, Yusuf's body was allegedly found mutilated in Orangi Town's Hawa Goth the same day, according to the party.
The party alleged that Rangers personnel had tortured, extra-judicially killed, and later dumped Yusuf's body there. According to an MQM-L blurb, the Edhi centre buried his body on July 30 after it remained unclaimed, and the family had later identified him via a picture.
Maj Raza said: "The truth is that the law enforcers had conducted a raid on a construction firm in Gulshan-e-Zia of Orangi Town on July 17 for Mohammed Yusuf's arrest but he was not there."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
DJI products have not proliferated across the Army and onto the battlefield the way more tactical UAVs like Pumas or Switchblades have — both made by U.S. manufacturer Aerovironment
Did you run a security audit of where all the chips came from? Or just take the subcontractor's word on it?
Ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has fled the country ahead of a verdict against her in a negligence trial brought by the junta that overthrew her, sources close to the Shinawatra family said on Friday.
Yingluck, 50, whose family has dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years, failed to show up at court for judgment in a case centered on the multi-billion dollar losses incurred by a rice subsidy scheme for farmers.
Overthrown in 2014, Yingluck had faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
"She has definitely left Thailand," said one source, who is also a member of the Shinawatra's Puea Thai Party. The sources did not say where she was now.
The Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant after saying it did not believe her excuse that she could not attend the court hearing because of an ear problem, but there was no sign of police showing up at her house.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2017 08:50 ||
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Bill Nye is suing the Walt Disney Company and a host of its subsidiaries today for more than $37 million, alleging he didn’t receive his fair share of the net profits generated by his long-running series Bill Nye the Science Guy.
"Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that as a direct and proximate result of the Defendants’ breach of fiduciary duty, Plaintiff has suffered damages in the amount of not less than Nine Million Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Five Hundred Sixty dollars (USD$9,350,565.00), the final amount to be proven at trial," says the complaint, dropping some big bucks demands (read it here).
And then the big bucks get bigger, like three times bigger.
"Plaintiff is further informed and believes and thereon alleges that the Defendants, by breaching their fiduciary duties, enriched themselves, at the expense of the Plaintiff and the BNSG Owners, obtaining ill-gotten profits of not less than Twenty Eight Million Fifty One Thousand Six Hundred Ninety Five dollars (USD$28,051,695.00)," Nye does some math at Disney’s expense that alleges to be at his expense.
The 28-page suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court , says that Nye received a check in April 2008 for $585,000 as his share of the net profits. However, a few months later, Buena Vista Television sent a second letter retracting its prior calculations. According to the second letter, Nye instead owed BTV $496,111.
Deadline has reached out to Disney for comment but has not heard back.
Bill Nye the Science Guy ran on PBS from 1994 to 1999 and also was syndicated to local stations. The show aired for 100 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning 19
The suit that Nye and his lawyers put before the court contends that "the disturbing size of the supposed ’accounting error,’ coupled with the seeming indifference of both BVT and WDC, left Nye suspicious of the veracity of the accounting."
Nye claims that he stopped receiving royalty or participation payments as of July 22, 2008, with the suit stating accountants insisting that he first repay the amount allegedly owed from the "overpayment."
Formally Nye’s action claims fraudulent concealment, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the convenent of good faith and fair dealing, and various accounting issues.
On the attorney front, the much beloved Nye is represented by Burbank’s Hamrick & Evans LLP.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
08/25/2017 09:07 ||
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#1
Bill Nye the science guy... best work of fiction.
#4
Nye the Mathematical Guy meets Hollywood Accounting
Hey Bill! You'll get to get close up and personal with a REAL 'Black Hole'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/25/2017 16:38 Comments ||
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#5
Have you ever heard of the Salkind Clause?
On the showing of the gala premiere of The Three Musketeers(1973) the actors, and what a group of stars!, discovered that they had been paid for one (1) movie and the studio had enough scenes to release two ( 2! ) movies. The "free" second movie was listed as The Fourth Musketeer(1974)... The lawsuits were fast and furious.
[Telegraph] A 3,700-year-old clay tablet has proven that the Babylonians developed trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks and were using a sophisticated method of mathematics which could change how we calculate today.
The tablet, known as Plimpton 332, was discovered in the early 1900s in Southern Iraq by the American archaeologist and diplomat Edgar Banks, who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones.
The true meaning of the tablet has eluded experts until now but new research by the University of New South Wales, Australia, has shown it is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, which was probably used by ancient architects to construct temples, palaces and canals.
However unlike today’s trigonometry, Babylonian mathematics used a base 60, or sexagesimal system, rather than the 10 which is used today. Because 60 is far easier to divide by three, experts studying the tablet, found that the calculations are far more accurate.
"Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles," said Dr Daniel Mansfield of the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the UNSW Faculty of Science.
"It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius. The tablet not only contains the world’s oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry.
"This means it has great relevance for our modern world. Babylonian mathematics may have been out of fashion for more than 3000 years, but it has possible practical applications in surveying, computer graphics and education.
"This is a rare example of the ancient world teaching us something new."
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lived around 120BC, has long been regarded as the father of trigonometry, with his ’table of chords’ on a circle considered the oldest trigonometric table.
A trigonometric table allows a user to determine two unknown ratios of a right-angled triangle using just one known ratio. But the tablet is far older than Hipparchus, demonstrating that the Babylonians were already well advanced in complex mathematics far earlier.
#3
The idea that math goes back farther than some think doesn't surprise me. But in the real world once you get down to 5 or 6 decimal places does it really matter. Besides, its not like they had the measuring tools to go along with it
#10
Neat story. I would like to see a Babylonian spherical trig tablet. Heh.
Dividing by 60 is handy for navigation. One degree of latitude equals 60 nautical miles. One nautical mile equals about 6000 feet. Or one minute of latitude. It makes navigating on paper charts (aeronautical or nautical) easy. Paper charts don't wink out.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/25/2017 11:07 Comments ||
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#11
Old story. The advance of the Greeks wasn't simple computation, no matter how clever such aids were. It was in the idea of axioms, formal definitions, and proofs. That's what math is ... the rest is application.
Babylonians used the base 60 stuff for their endlessly ornate astrology, and carried it over to land calculations. It was a specialized skill but not one of education, just training.
#15
I read about this yesterday, and was interested. I found a decent Wiki reference, which I include for those interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
There is a lot going on here, more than I had realized. An interesting read, good references, and it appears that base 60 math was passed down to the Babylonians from the Sumerians.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/25/2017 13:05 Comments ||
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#16
Damn. Base 60 will require a lot of new number symbols. Just when I thought I had base 16 down pat. **sigh**
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/25/2017 14:39 Comments ||
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Engineers swear by it. I have trouble doing anything else on my HP Calculator
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2017 20:06 Comments ||
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#23
Got an HP 41CX emulator on my Iphone 6+. Use it all the time. After my old HP41 literally wore out, had to go back to Babylonian trig tablets. Now I yam back on easy street.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/25/2017 20:20 Comments ||
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[DailyMail] Although the names of the countries have not been officially revealed, CNN has identified them as Cambodia, Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , Guinea and Sierra Leone.
#1
Among those who have been identified as problematic are are China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Iran, Cambodia, Myanmar, Morocco, Hong Kong, South Sudan, Guinea and Eritrea.
Strange, very strange. All appear to be stalwart democracies which have enthusiastically supported the U.S. in the past.
...whose shrinking newsroom is uneasy for other reasons...
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve.
Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.
Really? Expressed to who?
"Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting," Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal news hounds and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition.
He added in a follow-up, "Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?"
No wonder the New York Times is shocked. But I suspect Mr. Baker is delighted by the publicity about his position on the subject -- I certainly am.
A copy of Mr. Baker’s emails was reviewed by The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... Contacted about the emails on Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman wrote in a statement: "The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion. As always, the key priority is to focus reporting on facts and avoid opinion seeping into news coverage."
In February, Mr. Baker fielded tough questions at an all-hands staff meeting about whether the newspaper’s reporting on Mr. Trump was too soft. Mr. Baker denied that notion, and he suggested that other newspapers had abandoned their objectivity about the president; he also encouraged journalists unhappy with the Journal’s coverage to seek employment elsewhere.
It's a top newspaper that employs top 1% reporters, and pays them accordingly. They'll have no trouble finding replacements, while the typically liberal news staff will become somewhat more conservative, a happy differentiator during these competitive times.
#2
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump
That's because he doesn't grasp the fundamentals. He wants to produce a news paper. His staff wants to produce a political broadsheet, but advertize it as a news paper.
#3
Mr. Baker has a a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics with honors from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, UK. Not a J-school graduate and thus obviously 'unqualified' to the NYT.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DailyMail] 
A British farmer thanked firefighters who rescued a litter of piglets and two sows from a barn fire in February by giving them sausages made out of the animals, according to local reports. 
[DAWN] An official of Sindh Police was among the five suspected kidnappers killed in a shootout in 
Ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has fled the country ahead of a verdict against her in a negligence trial brought by the junta that overthrew her, sources close to the Shinawatra family said on Friday.
[Telegraph] A 3,700-year-old clay tablet has proven that the Babylonians developed trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks and were using a sophisticated method of mathematics which could change how we calculate today. 
