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Archive for July, 2013

CJ’s Prodigal & Dishonest Son, Arsalan Iftikhar Gets a ‘Red Carpet’ Welcome

A ‘red carpet’ for CJP’s son at airport

 
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Arsalan Iftikhar
 

LAHORE – The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary’s son, Arsalan Iftikhar was extended ‘royal protocol’ at the Allama Iqbal International Airport on Wednesday, according to media reports.
The protocol is reserved for the most esteemed public personalities; not extended to parliamentarians and ministers even.
Media reports said that Arsalan Iftikhar was given special protocol when he arrived at Lahore Airport by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight PK-615. A special vehicle was detailed to pick him up as soon as he stepped on the airport right from the stairs descending from the plane.
Arsalan Iftikhar has been charged with seeking millions of rupees in profit from former Chairman Bahria Town Malik Riaz during his foreign trips. The Shoaib Saddal Commission is investigating the matter.
Observers inquired that under what status was Arsalan Iftikhar provided protocol, terming this a bid of the PIA to seek the CJP’s favor.
Commenting on the situation, leading TV anchor Mubashar Luqman said that no enquiry had been initiated against Arsalan Iftikhar so far. The CJP had headed the bench during the course of the petition’s hearing but had later rescued his son, which raised troubling questions about the integrity of one of the country’s central institutions.

– See more at: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/07/04/city/lahore/a-red-carpet-for-cjps-son-at-airport-2/#sthash.bGmp0a3m.dpuf

 

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JOYS OF DEMOCRACY: “Nawaz Sharif is Greater than Quaid-i-Azam?” Inept “Umbersari” Kashmiri Minister of State for Information Technology Ms. Anusha Rahman Still Confused

Anusha Rehman Throws Quaid-e-Azam’s Picture Out of IT and Telecom Ministry

 
 When political toadies and carpetbaggers of nepotism rule a nation, the founder of the nation is lost in their incompetence. This has been blatantly illustrated by the toady Minister of State for Information Technology. To please her Master, Nawaz sharif, this Kafgeer of Nawaz Sharif has gone so overboard, that she eliminated the picture of the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam. In her lame efforts to cover her incompetence after a strong public reaction, she could come up with nothing, but lame excuses. Like her mentor Nawaz Sharif, she knows how to back track on her miserable ineptness and insensitivity towards the feelings of Pakistanis, at home and abroad.
 

Anusha Rehman, the state minister for Telecom and IT, has technically thrown out the picture of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah – the founder of the nation – out from building of Ministry of IT and Telecom.

Recently produced pictures from MoIT show a picture of Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and direct boss of Ms. Anusha Rehman, instead of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait.

Its a shame that PML(N) government is following the footstep of PPP(P) by preferring their party leaders over Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

It merits mentioning here that PPP (P) government, at few occasions, had removed the portrait of Quaid-e-Azam from meeting rooms and had used pictures of their political leaders, including Asif Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

 

1 thumb Anusha Rehman Throws Quaid e Azams Picture Out of IT and Telecom Ministry

Minister of State for Information Technology Ms. Anusha Rahman while meeting with a delegation of Telenor.

canada high thumb Anusha Rehman Throws Quaid e Azams Picture Out of IT and Telecom Ministry

High Commissioner of Canada H.E Greg Giokas calling on Minister of State for Information Technology Ms. Anusha Rahman in Islamabad, on 09-07-2013.

 

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THE GUARDIAN,UK: Pakistan Bin Ladin Commission Official Report Criticizes Pakistan Security Lapses and US acted as a Criminal Thug

Bin Laden killing: official report criticises Pakistan and US

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Leaked report into killing of al-Qaida chief criticises both Pakistan and US, which it says ‘acted like a criminal thug’

  • Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad
Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad: the report repeatedly returns to the remarkable failure of the police, army and civilian authorities to investigate the unusual house where the al-Qaida chief hid for so long. Photograph: Anjum Naveed/AP

 

Pakistan failed to detect Osama bin Laden during the six years he hid in Abbottabad because of the “collective incompetence and negligence” of the country’s intelligence and security forces, the official report into the killing of the al-Qaida chief in 2011 has concluded.

The much anticipated report, a copy of which was obtained by al-Jazeera, is withering in its criticism of Pakistan’s dysfunctional institutions, which were unable to find the world’s most wanted man during his long stay in a major Pakistani city.

“It is a glaring testimony to the collective incompetence and negligence, at the very least, of the security and intelligence community in the Abbottabad area,” said the report, which criticised Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), for having prematurely “closed the book” on Bin Laden in 2005.

Nor does the 336-page document rule out the possibility of involvement by rogue Pakistani intelligence officers, who have been accused of deliberately shielding Bin Laden by some commentators.

“Given the length of stay and the changes of residence of [Bin Laden] and his family in Pakistan … the possibility of some such direct or indirect and “plausibly deniable” support cannot be ruled out, at least, at some level outside formal structures of the intelligence establishment.”


It warns that the influence of radical Islamists inside the armed forces had been “underestimated by senior military officials whom the commission met”.

The document also gives a fascinating glimpse into the day-to-day life of Bin Laden: according to an account given to the Abbottabad Commission by his wives, he wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat to avoid detection from spy satellites above, liked to have an apple and a bit of chocolate to perk himself up when he was feeling weak, and encouraged his grandchildren to compete over who could tend the best vegetable patch.

The children of one of Bin Laden’s trusted Pakistani couriers knew him as “Miskeen Kaka”, or “poor uncle” – after one asked why the tall Arab never went out on shopping expeditions, the child was told he was too poor to buy anything.

The document also reveals the tantalising moment when the car bin Laden was riding in was stopped by police in the picturesque region of Swat. The policeman was not quick-witted enough to spot the then clean shaven bin Laden and the group were allowed to pass.

In addition to its scorching criticism of Pakistani institutions, the document reflects official fury at the behaviour of the US. It concludes the US “acted like a criminal thug” when it sent the special forces raiding party into Pakistani territory.

It says that the incident was a “national tragedy” because of the “illegal manner in which [Bin Laden] was killed along with three Pakistani citizens”.

It says the operation on 2 May 2011 was an “American act of war against Pakistan” which illustrated the US’s “contemptuous disregard of Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity in the arrogant certainty of its unmatched military might”.

Begun soon after the dramatic US raid, the judge-led inquiry by the Abbottabad commission heard testimony from some of the country’s most important players, including the ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who shared much of the authors’ despair about Pakistan, warning that it is a “failing state”.

With frank discussion of some of the country’s most sensitive issues, there were real fears it would never be published.

In remarks that will be seized on by critics of the CIA’s use of drone strikes against suspected militants inside Pakistan, Pasha admitted to a “political understanding” on the issue between Islamabad and the US – something Pakistan has always officially denied.

Pasha said there were no written agreements, and that Pakistan did subsequently attempt to stop drone attacks, but added that “it was easier to say no to them at the beginning”.

The former spy chief was scathing about the quality of Pakistan’s civilian leadership, accusing his nominal boss, the defence minister, of failing to have read “the basic documents concerning defence policy”. “There was simply no culture of reading among the political leadership,” and “the thinking process was also non-existent”.

The report also contains much criticism of the US, in particular the CIA for its failure to share intelligence fully with the ISI.

At one point, the CIA gave Pakistan phone numbers to monitor that would ultimately help identify Bin Laden’s personal courier – the all-important lead that eventually brought the manhunt to the al-Qaida chief’s Abbottabad home. The CIA never explained the significance of the phone numbers and the ISI failed to properly monitor them, the report said.

But in a striking echo of US unwillingness to share intelligence with its Pakistani partners, Pasha also said the ISI was reluctant to work with Pakistan’s own law enforcement organisations because “there were too many instances where information shared with the police had been compromised”.

His evidence highlights the ISI’s distrust of and anger at the CIA, which Pasha claimed deliberately prevented Pakistan from claiming the glory for finding Bin Laden, which he said would have improved Pakistan’s international reputation.

The “main agenda of the CIA was to have the ISI declared a terrorist organisation”, he is quoted as saying.

Pasha reports the words of a US spy: “You are so cheap … we can buy you with a visa, with a visit to the US, even with a dinner … we can buy anyone.”

The report asks whether the ISI had been compromised by CIA spies. One lieutenant colonel who “disappeared” with his family the day after the Abbottabad raid had a profile that “matched that of a likely CIA recruit”.

The document repeatedly returns to what it describes as “government implosion syndrome” to explain the failure of any institution to investigate Bin Laden’s unusual hideout.

“How the entire neighbourhood, local officials, police and security and intelligence officials all missed the size, the strange shape, the barbed wire, the lack of cars and visitors … over a period of nearly six years beggars belief,” it says.

It notes that the house was even declared uninhabited in an official survey of the area, even though 26 people were living there at the time.

It says Bin Laden must have required a support network “that could not possibly have been confined to the two Pashtun brothers who worked as his couriers, security guards and general factotums”.

The report says: “Over a period of time an effective intelligence agency should have been able to contact, infiltrate or co-opt them and to develop a whole caseload of information. Apparently, this was not the case.”

It also expresses shock that the US helicopters carrying members of Navy Seal team six were not spotted as they swooped in over Abbottabad on 2 May. A lack of operational radar meant the Pakistani air force only became aware of the attack from media reports after it was over.

 

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Snowden: US and Israel did create Stuxnet attack code UK is ‘radioactive’ and ‘Queen’s selfies to the pool boy’ slurped

Snowden: US and Israel did create Stuxnet attack code

UK is ‘radioactive’ and ‘Queen’s selfies to the pool boy’ slurped

 
 
 
stux

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has confirmed that the Stuxnet malware used to attack Iranian nuclear facilities was created as part of a joint operation between the Israelis and the NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD).

“The NSA and Israel cowrote it,” he told Der Spiegel in an email interview conducted before he publicly outed himself as the NSA mole. Snowden is currently in Russia and a “free man” according to Vladimir Putin – as long as there are no further NSA leaks.

 

The Stuxnet code, which has been deployed since 2005, is thought to be the first malware aimed specifically at damaging specific physical infrastructure*, and was inserted into the computer networks of the Iranian nuclear fuel factory in Natanz shortly after it opened.

Early variants attempted to contaminate uranium supplies by interfering with the flow of gas to the fuel being processed, potentially causing explosive results in the processing factory. Later a more advanced variant attacked the centrifuges themselves, burning out motors by rapidly starting and stopping the units and contaminating fuel production, although it may actually have encouraged the Iranians.

Last year an unnamed US official said that Stuxnet was part of a program calledOperation Olympic Games, started under President Bush and continued under the current administration, aimed at slowing down the Iranian nuclear effort without having to resort to risky airstrikes. General James Cartwright, a former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is currently under investigation by the US government for allegedly leaking details of Operation Olympic Games.

Don’t trust Europe or multinationals

Such international efforts are coordinated by the NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD), Snowden said.

The FAD has full cooperation with its so-called “Five Eye partners,” in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and these agencies are even better or worse (depending on your viewpoint) at collecting data. Typically, these countries practice “full take,” Snowden said, scooping every bit of data and storing it for later perusal.

“As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at all, you should never route through or peer with the UK under any circumstances,” he said. “Their fibers are radioactive, and even the Queen’s selfies to the pool boy get logged.”

Other European countries also work closely with the NSA, he said, describing the organization as “in bed together with the Germans.” Other countries don’t ask where the NSA’s data comes from, and the US returns that favor, to give politicians plausible deniability in the event of source disclosure, he explained.

Multinational companies also play the game, Snowden said, and cooperate with the NSA to enable the slurping of their customer’s data, although a few (unnamed) firms don’t submit their data to NSA inspection. “The NSA considers the identities of telecom collaborators to be the jewels in their crown of omniscience,” he said

“As a general rule, US-based multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise,” he said. “This is sad, because they have the capability to provide the best and most trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so.”

*Bootnote

There are unconfirmed reports that the CIA was using dodgy software as far back as the 1980s to cause problems with its then–enemy number one, the Soviet Union.

According to National Security Council staffer Thomas Reed, the CIA got wind that the Soviets were trying to steal industrial-control software for a new gas pipeline from a Canadian supplier. He claims the CIA installed a trojan into the Canadian firm’s software and allowed it to be purloined by the KGB.

“The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds,” he said. “The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.”

The report has never been officially confirmed, although the CIA has said that it introduced numerous dodgy technologies to the Soviets, including “flawed turbines [that] were installed on a gas pipeline.”

 

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VIDEO LECTURE FOR COMPUTER GEEKS ON STUX NET CYBERWARFARE AGENT: Langner’s Stuxnet Deep Dive S4 Video

Langner’s Stuxnet Deep Dive S4 Video

Dale G Peterson
 
 
 
 
 

Edward Snowden: U.S., Israel ‘Co-Wrote’ Cyber Super Weapon Stuxnet

Jul 9, 2013 2:22pm

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The former National Security Agency contractor on the run from U.S. authorities halfway around the world said that Stuxnet, an unprecedented cyber weapon thattargeted Iran’s nuclear program, was the product of a joint American-Israeli secret operation.

Before Edward Snowden became a household name, he conducted an interview via encrypted emails with cyber security expert Jacob Appelbaum and was asked about the game-changing computer code, according to the interview published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel Monday.

“NSA [U.S. National Security Agency] and Israel co-wrote it,” Snowden said.

Snowden said that the NSA regularly works with foreign governments and has a “massive body” called the Foreign Affairs Directorate to deal with international partners.

In the interview Snowden did not discuss Stuxnet further and, so far, none of the newspapers Snowden has worked with have published any documents directly relating to the cyber weapon.

Discovered in 2010 but possibly in action as early as 2005, Stuxnet was designed to infiltrate the computer system at an Iranian nuclear facility, physically damage the facility’s infrastructure by throwing off automated systems and cover its tracks so that even if engineers were monitoring those systems, everything would appear normal.

At the time of its discovery, cyber security experts put the U.S. and Israel on a short list of nations capable of developing such a sophisticated and expensive cyber weapon. In June 2012, The New York Times reported Stuxnet was part of a cyber offensive program begun under President Bush and accelerated by President Obama which targeted Iran’s nuclear program and said Stuxnet was “developed by the United States and Israel.” No U.S. or Israeli officials have gone on the record to claim responsibility for Stuxnet or its digital successors.

Snowden remains holed up on the transit side of Moscow’s Sheremedevo International Airport. He has been unable to travel since he arrived there from Hong Kong more than two weeks ago because the State Department canceled his passport. He has also managed to remain out of sight since his arrival.

Snowden has been searching for a safe haven where he can evade U.S. charges of espionage. Venezuela has said it would grant Snowden political asylum, but it remains unclear how he will be able to travel to the South American nation from Moscow without having to stop in a country that holds an extradition treaty with the U.S. There are no direct commercial flights to Venezuela’s capital of Caracas.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 

Ralph Langner’s Stuxnet Deep Dive is the definitive technical presentation on the PLC attack portion of Stuxnet. He did a good job of showing very technical details in a readable and logical presentation that you can follow in the video if you know something about programming and PLC’s.

The main purpose of Ralph’s talk was to convince the audience with “100% certainty” that Stuxnet was designed specifically to attack the Natanz facility. He does this at least four different ways, and I have to agree there is no doubt.

This video represents exactly what we are trying to accomplish at S4. Ralph is speaking in front of a very experienced and knowledgeable ICS security audience, and he doesn’t waste any time on what Stuxnet 101. Instead, he dives right into the S7 code and walks the audience through, line by line, some of the most interesting FC’s. This level of detail has never been seen before. It likely would bore or be lost on most audiences, but the S4 crowd was spellbound.

It’s high quality video so expand to full screen to see the code.

The video shows the level of effort Langner’s team put into analyzing Stuxnet as there comments are throughout the S7 Stuxnet code. Many in the audience remarked that it was probably much better documented than the Stuxnet author’s version.

I’m tempted to try to excerpt the most interesting points of the presentation, but if you want to know about Stuxnet’s PLC code you should just watch it.

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