China said on Tuesday it would place sanctions on Lockheed Martin for its involvement in arms sales to Taiwan, a move that could further escalate tensions between Beijing and Washington. hackingbear writes: “China firmly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press conference. Taiwan is a self-ruled island, but China has long vowed to…
Tag: contractor
The F-16’s Replacement Won’t Have a Pilot At All
“The next combat aircraft to enter the U.S. Air Force inventory will not be a manned sixth-generation fighter or even the Northrop Grumman B-21,” reports Aviation Week. “By fiscal 2023, the Air Force expects to deliver the first operational versions of a new unmanned aircraft system (UAS) called Skyborg, a provocative portmanteau blending the medium of flight with the contraction for…
IRS Used Cellphone Location Data To Try To Find Suspects
The Internal Revenue Service attempted to identify and track potential criminal suspects by purchasing access to a commercial database that records the locations of millions of American cellphones. The Wall Street Journal reports: The IRS Criminal Investigation unit, or IRS CI, had a subscription to access the data in 2017 and 2018, and the way it used the data was revealed…
From RealPlayer To Toshiba, Tech Companies Cash in on the Facial Recognition Gold Rush
At least 45 companies now advertise real-time facial recognition. From a report: More than a decade before Spotify, and years before iTunes, there was RealPlayer, the first mainstream solution to playing and streaming media to a PC. Launched in 1995, within five years RealPlayer claimed a staggering 95 million users. […] RealPlayer is still very much alive. Now called RealNetworks, a…
Senate Passes Surveillance Bill Without Ban On Web History Snooping
The Senate has voted to reauthorize the USA Freedom Act without adding an amendment that would have restricted warrantless collection of internet search and web browsing data. It did however adopt an amendment to expand oversight. The Verge reports: The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act restores government powers that expired in March with Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The [Act] lets…
Ransomware Scumbags Leak Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX Documents After Contractor Refuses To Pay
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Internal confidential documents belonging to some of the largest aerospace companies in the world have been stolen from an industrial contractor and leaked online. The data was pilfered and dumped on the internet by the criminals behind the DoppelPaymer Windows ransomware, in retaliation for an unpaid extortion demand. The sensitive documents include…
It’s a ‘Cold War Every Day’ Inside Apple’s IS&T Group
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via BuzzFeed News: A group inside Apple called Information Systems & Technology, or IS&T, builds much of the company’s internal technology tools — from servers and data infrastructure to retail and corporate sales software — and operates in a state of tumult. IS&T is made up largely of contractors hired by rival…
‘Call of Duty’ Wins First Amendment Victory Over Use of Humvees
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hollywood Reporter: Call of Duty maker Activision has prevailed in a closely watched trademark dispute brought by AM General, the government contractor for Humvees. On Tuesday, a New York federal judge responded favorably to Activision’s argument that it had a First Amendment right to depict contemporary warfare in its game by featuring Humvees….
Forbes: Hack on Putin’s Intelligence Agency Finds Weapon to Exploit IoT Vulnerabilities
“Red faces in Red Square, again,” writes a Forbes cybersecurity correspondent:
Last July, I reported on the hacking of SyTech, an FSB contractor working on internet surveillance tech. Now, reports have emerged from Russia of another shocking security breach within the FSB ecosystem. This one has exposed “a new weapon ordered by the security service,” one that can be used to execute…
Are There Security Risks When Millions are Suddenly Working from Home?
“The dramatic expansion of teleworking by U.S. schools, businesses and government agencies in response to the coronavirus is raising fresh questions about the capacity and security of the tools many Americans use to connect to vital workplace systems and data,” reports CNN: As of last week the Air Force’s virtual private networking software could only support 72,000 people at once, according…