Tag Archives: FBI
FBI Now Has Surveillance Unit That Monitors Skype and Other Internet Communications
This past January, Bangladeshi terrorist Rajib Karim filed a complaint for not being able to use Skype so that he can make low cost calls to contact his family while he is in Jail. Terrorists are known for using Skype for conspiracy purposes. This is one of the biggest reasons why the FBI is getting ready to launch a surveillance unit that is capable of spying on Skype conversations and other Internet communications. The Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC) is a collaboration between the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and the DEA. All three agenices are building customized hardware to enable wiretapping on Internet conversations if they get a court order request. The DCAC will also be available for state, local, and federal police. The FBI is also working on an initiative to develop an automatic mass-monitoring computer application to analyze Facebook for crime-related comments.
Categories FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation
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The FBI May Have Inadvertently Agreed To Being Involved With Carrier IQ
The FBI used the Freedom of Information Act to inadvertently admit somehow being involved with Carrier IQ. Carrier IQ created network diagnostic software that was accused of collecting personal information. Government transparency blog MuckRock has filed for an FOIA release on the FBI’s use of Carrier IQ. The FBI said no and said the following:
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Categories Carrier IQ, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation
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FBI Raids Apartment Of SAG Member Wes DeSoto For Allegedly Uploading The King’s Speech and Black Swan To The Pirate Bay
The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the apartment Wes DeSoto, a member of the Screen Actors Guild. THe FBI believes that he was the first one to upload the movies The King’s Speech and Black Swan to The Pirate Bay in January. The FBI is also looking into whether DeSoto is part of The Pirate Bay pre-release movie-uploading group that is known as TiMPE.
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Yasir Afifi Suing FBI For Placing Tracking Gadget In His Car
A lawsuit by the Council on America-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been filed on behalf of Yasir Afifi against the FBI. Afifi is a Muslim-American student that is of Egyptian descent. Last year Afifi found a strange gadget underneath his car when getting an oil change. He was scared that it was a pipe bomb so his friend posted photos of it on Reddit. The Reddit community confirmed that it was a GPS tracking device placed there by the FBI without a warrant. FBI agents learned that Afifi discovered the device and they demanded it back from him before he destroyed it since it is expensive. Below is a video discussing the lawsuit:
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FBI Raids The Houses Of Pro-Wikileaks Operation Payback Activists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has executed over 40 search warrants for those involved with Operation Payback. Operation Payback was a group of hackers that took down the Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal websites using DDoS attacks out of Wikileaks retaliation. Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal had dropped financial support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange shortly after he released confidential government cables. The group behind Operation Payback is known as “Anonymous.”
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FBI Raids A Texas Hosting Company Believed To Be Involved In Hack Attacks Against PayPal
The FBI raided a hosting company based in Texas as part of investigation to find out who was behind the hack attack against PayPal. The FBI took a computer server and a couple of hard drives. PayPal officials “reported that an Internet activist group using the names ‘4chan’ and ‘Anonymous’ appeared to be organizing a distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attack against the company” to the FBI. The attack against PayPal was part of a project called “Operation Payback.” Operation Payback was an organized attack to hack companies that froze or suspended WikiLeaks accounts. The FBI traced an IP address to Tailor Made Services, a firm based in Dallas that provides dedicated server hosting. [The Smoking Gun]
FBI Raids The Offices Of Toyota Suppliers DENSO, Yazaki, and Tokai Rika in Detroit
The FBI has raised the offices of DENSO International, Yazaki North America, and Tokai Rika in Detroit as part of an investigation of Toyota Motor Company. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda faced the United States Congress earlier today to discuss the gas pedals issue. [Jalopnik]
Categories Akio Toyoda, DENSO International, FBI, Tokai Rika, Yazaki
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FBI Serves Search Warrants On Google and Yahoo! To Find Out More Info About Michael Barrett
The FBI has served Google and Yahoo! with search documents regarding a man named Michael Barrett. Barrett was charged with one count of interstate stalking when he released a naked video of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews (pictured above). The FBI agents are looking for a 42 second video that was posted on Yahoo!’s image and video sharing website Flickr.com. And additional information about Barrett was requested from Google by the FBI.
Between Yahoo! and Google they have about 10 days to turn over the records starting this past Wednesday. The video that was posted on Flickr appears to have been taken through a hotel room peephole. The video was viewed about 3,000 times. Wesley Hsu, an Assistant U.S. Attorney claims that the video of the woman posted on Flickr actually was not Andrews.
Barrett found three hotels where Andrews was staying and attempted to alter the peephole. Then he shot the videos through the peephole. After that he tried to upload the videos and tried to sell them to TMZ. Barrett could face about five years in prison if convicted with a fine of $250,000.
Categories Erin Andrews, FBI, Google, Michael Barrett, Wesley Hsu, Yahoo!
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FBI Arrests Jeffrey Weaver For Posting Threatening Comments On InfoWars.com
On January 1, 2009, a San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District police officer fatally shot an African-American man by the name of Oscar Grant III. The incident was capture live on video. I did not embed the video because of how disturbing it is, but I will give you a link here. The police officer claimed that he was innocent because he said he never intended to actually shoot the victim.
Since this incident has taken place, many people have expressed their outrage on the Internet. There have been many YouTube video responses to the original video and many outraged comments left on blogs and forums. Jeffrey Weaver has apparently left anonymous comments on InfoWars.com that threatened to kill the former police officer behind the incident Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was arrested after running off to Las Vegas. He went there because he said he had received numerous death threats.
The FBI has an affidavit that contains the comments that Weaver left on InfoWars.com. The comments were deleted shortly after they were left, but the FBI was able to retrieve the Weaver’s information anyway.
Weaver supposedly used the alias “F**kThePigs” and he wrote “F**k the pigs and if I find out who the pig is then I will kill the pig who killed him.” Shortly after this comment was left, another commenter posted the address to Mehserle’s home. Weaver was accused of leaving an additional comment after the address was posted: “now that I know who he is and where he is its only a matter of time and his punishment will be to watch his ***** and his baby get wasted in front of him . . . this isn’t a threat its a ****ing promise . . . because justice will be served death wish charles bronson vigilante style. . . .”
Several days later, a comment from the same IP address threatened to kill a police officer in Martinsville, Virginia. The Virginia police officer that was being threatened had killed a 17 year old with a Taser gun. In the Virginia police officer message, the comment claimed that he had a gun too. Below is the message:
“All I got to say is that I’m within 100 miles of where this incident happened at and reading this makes my blood boil. Maybe I should drive to Martinsville with my 9mm Glock and some teflon coated armor piercing Black Rhino hollow pointed rounds and do the world a favor by ridding the world of this piece of s**t pig . . .”
After finding the death threat evidence, Mehserle’s father contacted the FBI. The FBI had subpoenaed Alex Jones, the man behind InfoWars.com and they were able to retrieve the IP addresses of the comments that were posted. All of the IP addresses connected to Weaver.
The affidavit also claims that Weaver was convicted in 1986 for dealing marijuana. Weaver had also made death threats to Cox Communications employees for cutting off his cable TV.
Weaver admitted to leave the comments when his house was raided a couple of weeks ago. He said that he was angry when he made the comment and was not planning to hurt anyone. Alex Jones is not happy about having to hand over the IP addresses of people and because of this incident he is considering turning off comments on his website.
[via Wired: Threat Level]
FBI Raids Home Of Energy Future’s Ex-Employee For Unauthorized File Manipulation
[Satellite view of Comanche Peak]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently investigating the manipulation of energy forecasting system files that an ex-employee of Energy Future Holdings is responsible for. The setback the company about $26,000 back in March.
Energy Future Holdings is the parent company of three electric companies in Texas. One of those subsidiaries is Luminent, a company that controls 18,300 megawatts of power and also operates the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant (picture above from Google Earth).
Dong Chul Shin was fired from Energy Future back in March over performance reasons and was escorted out of the office building. However Energy Future forgot to cut off Shin’s VPN access. Shin’s VPN account was accessed later and e-mailed secure information to a Yahoo! account. Shin also modified and deleted several files from his VPN account. The IP address of the VPN account was linked to Shin’s home.
Shin had also sent an e-mail to the engineering group of the Comanche Peak nuclear reactor and asked capacity questions. The FBI is treating this case as a federal computer crime. One of the files that was tampered was “Hourly Capacity Supplied — 2009 upload.xls.” This file is used to determine the power generation that is required for RFH system components. The manipulation of this file impairs the company’s ability to sell electricity for that day, but did not threaten the safety of the plant.
After Shin was fired, he said that he would return the company laptop the next day but he didn’t. Company security had to show up to his door two days later and pick it up themselves. The company reported the crime to the FBI.
[via Wired]