[The Hill] Georgia's Secretary of State is accusing someone at the Department of Homeland Security of illegally trying to hack its computer network, including the voter registration database.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, copied to the full Georgia congressional delegation, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp alleges that a computer with a DHS internet address attempted to breach its systems.
Kemp writes: "On November 15, 2016, an IP address associated with the Department of Homeland Security made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Georgia Secretary of State's firewall. I am writing you to ask whether DHS was aware of this attempt and, if so, why DHS was attempting to breach our firewall."
November 15 was a full week after the election.
The letter goes on say that the systems under attack contained the personal information of over 6.5 million Georgians, 800,000 corporate entities and over 500,000 licensed or registered professionals.
"At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network," writes Kemp. "Moreover, your department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network."
Kemp is a vocal opponent of a suggestion floated by some lawmakers that DHS declare elections critical infrastructure, which would give the federal agency some control over the state-based election systems. The idea was born of fears that Russia intended to hack the presidential election. DHS has said they had no intentions to pursue that strategy.
Unlike many other states, Georgia notably turned down voluntary assistance from Homeland Security to shore up election systems.
Kemp is the co-chair of the National Association of Secretaries of State's elections committee and sits on Homeland Security's Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group.
"Under 18 U.S.C. § 1030, attempting to gain access or exceeding authorized access to protected computer systems is illegal," he notes.
A representative for DHS said it had received the letter and was investigating.
Facebook revealed that it has been miscalculating more of its viewership metrics for advertisers in a blog post on Friday. Ooops (part 3)
One miscalculation is a discrepancy between the number of likes and shares Facebook shows for web links through its Graph API for advertisers and mobile search field.
Facebook has also been miscalculating the number of likes and reaction emojis that page owners see for their live videos. Ya think a bunch of programmers working for a billion dollar company would be better than this
This is the third time Facebook has admitted to misleading advertisers since September, when it was revealed that the social network had been inflating a key video-viewing metric for years. Nice IPO there. Would be a shame if something happened to it
Neither of the errors Facebook revealed on Friday are as impactful for advertisers as the previously misreported numbers for video views and other products like Instant Articles.
But the discrepancy between the number of likes and shares for web links could affect the accuracy of recent, widely cited investigations by BuzzFeed and The New York Times into how fake news stories are shared on Facebook, according to Marketing Land's Tim Peterson. Both investigations relied on Facebook's like and share data to show how fakes news stories can easily go viral on the social network.
Facebook said on Friday that it's still "looking into" the discrepancy. The company recently acquired CrowdTangle, a tool used by media outlets to measure how stories are shared across Facebook and other social networks. Fake but accurate? Plain stupidity? Corporate Greed?
The ballot to elect 11 new federal lawmakers for the Lower House chamber seats allocated to the clans hailing from Somaliland has been postponed to Saturday (10th December, 2016).
Koshin Abdi Hashi, the chairman of the electoral commission of northern regions election has confirmed the postponement of the parliamentary election to Radio Shabelle over the phone. Hashi gave no reason for the delay, but he said the elders are busy with resolving internal disputes among the candidates and the electoral delegates.
"Reach for the sky, ya varmint!"
The elders have recently lodged a complaint letter to the country’s electoral commission, and demanded the current election venue to be moved to Halane, AMISOM headwaters in the airport.
On Tuesday, the Lower House election for 46 seats that will represent Somaliland in the forthcoming federal parliament has kicked off at the Police Transport HQ in Mogadishu. So far, 6 MPs from Somaliland were elected in the first election held in Mogadishu on Tuesday, and the remaining 40 seats are expected to be elected in the coming days.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2016 00:00 ||
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The National Assembly on Friday votes to impeach President Park Geun-hye, who is embroiled in a massive influence-peddling and corruption scandal.
Last weekend, 171 lawmakers proposed the impeachment motion, but it needs a two-thirds majority or at least 200 lawmakers to pass. The plenary session has been set to start at 3 p.m. and the results are expected around an hour later. If it passes, Park's powers will be suspended immediately. The National Assembly then submits the impeachment bill to the Constitutional Court, where judges have 180 days to reach a ruling.
In the impeachment attempt of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004, the Constitutional Court took 63 days to reach a decision.
Six of the nine Constitutional Court judges must rule the bill lawful. If they reject it Park is reinstated, but if it is upheld she steps down and loses her presidential immunity so she can be prosecuted.
As expected, Park had no comment on Thursday. A Cheong Wa Dae official said, "It is difficult to make any comments ahead of the impeachment vote. The president will observe the developments in a calm manner and respond according to the results."
Saenuri Party leader and Park loyalist Lee Jung-hyun made a last-ditch attempt to save Park's face. "The National Assembly should consider halting the impeachment process and letting the president step down in April, with presidential elections in June."
The offer was on the table earlier, but even most Saenuri lawmakers no longer believe it is tenable and have told the president so.
Lawmakers in the three opposition parties -- the Minjoo, People's and Justice party -- vowed to resign if the impeachment bill fails to garner enough votes.
Including independents there are in fact 172 opposition lawmakers, so they need the support of at least 28 Saenuri lawmakers to vote with them, a quorum that seems likely to be achieved. Most Saenuri lawmakers outside Park's own traditionalist faction made no comments on Thursday, but Hwang Young-cheul, who heads a faction that does not support Park, said, "We will try our best to pass the impeachment bill."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dallas Morning News] The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System's Board of Trustees suspended lump-sum withdrawals from the pension fund Thursday, staving off a possible restraining order and stopping $154 million in withdrawal requests.
The system was set to pay out the weekly requests Friday. Pension officials said allowing the withdrawals would leave them without the liquid reserves required to sustain the $2.1 billion fund.
"Our situation is currently critical, and we took action," board chairman Sam Friar said.
Pension officials and many police and firefighters have blamed Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings for forcing the latest run on the bank. Dozens of retirees rushed to request withdrawals after Rawlings filed a lawsuit Monday to stop the withdrawals.
By then, more than $500 million had already gushed from the fund since the board proposed benefit cuts in August.
#3
The gods of the copybook headings. They kept making deals, which were promises, then did nothing to ensure that the promises could be kept. They were warned repeatedly over recent decades that the promises could not be kept, given that not enough money has been put into the funds, and that the returns were not nearly as high as expected. Now the promises won't be kept, which is terribly unfair to those who believed the lying politicians and the lying union leaders.
#4
Also local charges of mismanagement, which is another way of looking at 'returns not as high as expected.'
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/09/2016 13:48 Comments ||
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#5
Coming soon to a great many publicly sponsored pension funds near you. Promises were made and obligations undertaken, that will prove impossible to honor.
#6
Isnt Dallas proper one of the Dem areas of Texas, surrounded by lots of Republican counties and small Republican cities? If so, that explains a lot.
#7
Coming soon to a great many publicly sponsored pension funds near you. Promises were made and obligations undertaken, that will prove impossible to honor.
Glenn at Instapundit has a saying that perfectly summarizes situations like this one: "That which can't go on forever...won't."
[DW] Telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom and several other German firms have stopped advertising on the US media outlet Breitbart. A similar snub by Kellogg's had sparked a furious response from the right-wing site.
The carmaker BMW, the restaurant chain Vapiano, the supermarket chain Rewe, and Deutsche Telekom have all pulled their ads from the pro-Trump news site due to concerns about its content, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported on Wednesday.
"The positions held by Breitbart.com contrast with Vapiano's values, such as openness and tolerance," said the restaurant chain offering Italian food across Europe and the US.
Deutsche Telekom is also present on the American market through its subsidiary T-mobile, the third-largest wireless carrier in the US. Replying to a DW inquiry, Deutsche Telekom said they "very much regret" that their ads appeared on Breitbart, which is often branded a far-right hate site.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Fuck them. I'll never buy another Kellogg's product. Further, I find BMWs to be over-rated. My boss sometimes enters tosses me the keys to her high-end BMW on the way into a meeting. Its "punchy", but the dials/climate control/etc are counter-intuitive, down to the shifter itself being backwards ass. I had more fun test driving a Dodge Challenger than I've ever had running around in the BMW. I'd rather run errands in my late model Hyundai or 6 year-old Nissan--they operate like an actual car rather than an over-priced puzzle that amounts to "take a guess how to get the BMW to do what any other car is designed to do intuitively".
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.
Facebook revealed that it has been miscalculating more of its viewership metrics for advertisers in a blog post on Friday.
[WGME] It's an unlikely friendship at a zoo right here in Maine, a horse and a camel.
