scandal | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 06 Jul 2016 11:39:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png scandal | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 FBI recommends against charging Hilary Clinton over email server https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/fbi-recommends-against-charging-hilary-clinton-over-email-server/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/fbi-recommends-against-charging-hilary-clinton-over-email-server/#comments Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:21:42 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=298513 The FBI has announced that at the conclusion of its investigation into U.S. presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, over her use of an unsecured private email server while Secretary of State, that they it would not recommend indictment. Although the justice department may pursue a conviction any way, it seems quite likely now that Clinton has …

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The FBI has announced that at the conclusion of its investigation into U.S. presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, over her use of an unsecured private email server while Secretary of State, that they it would not recommend indictment. Although the justice department may pursue a conviction any way, it seems quite likely now that Clinton has skated.

Hilary Clinton's use of a private email server while serving as one of the highest ranking members of the U.S. government has caused a lot of controversy. There were claims from hackers that they infiltrated the system, that Russian and Chinese state sponsored actors may have gained access and there were many examples of Clinton breaching security protocols by using the service.

Despite this negligence though, the FBI deemed after its investigation that it wasn't wilful. While that isn't necessary for criminal charges, the presumption is that that makes it hard to imagine a prosecutor securing a conviction – especially against someone so connected and financially stable as Clinton.

clintonlaugh

Source: Telegraph

Although speculative, analysts believe that if the FBI were to recommend a indictment, it would threaten Clinton's presidential candidacy come the general election later this year and if it were unable to convict her, it would be one of the biggest gaffes in the FBI's history.

That doesn't mean that the FBI doesn't think any wrongdoing took place however. During his address, FBI director James Comey was highly critical of Clinton and her staff. He described a culture that was either ignorant or flippant about digital security and that that would need to be addressed in the State Department. In total more than 100 classified or secretive emails were sent without security through the server, occasionally at the request of Clinton herself.

The Clinton campaign released a statement shortly after the press conference, that said it was glad the investigation was behind them, this was just fuel to the fire for republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. He said that the lack of recommendation to indict from the FBI proved that the system was rigged and that the establishment had been against other democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders, from the start.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It's pretty crazy that someone like Edward Snowden can be effectively exiled and considered a traitor for releasing secretive documents in an effort to blow the whistle on illegal spying, but doing so through negligence as a presidential candidate, means no charges will be brought.

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Hacker claims he read Hilary Clinton’s private emails https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/hacker-claims-he-read-hilary-clintons-private-emails/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/hacker-claims-he-read-hilary-clintons-private-emails/#comments Fri, 06 May 2016 08:30:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=291928 With the U.S. general election looming later this year, Hilary Clinton's email scandal could end up costing her the presidency, which is why her team is pushing back hard against the idea that alleged hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar hacked her private server. He claims it was easy to access and that he read several of her …

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With the U.S. general election looming later this year, Hilary Clinton's email scandal could end up costing her the presidency, which is why her team is pushing back hard against the idea that alleged hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar hacked her private server. He claims it was easy to access and that he read several of her “boring,” emails, suggesting many others could also have accessed it.

The scandal in question relates to a private email server that Clinton operated from her house during her tenure as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013, which she funnelled official and often secretive emails through. Many of these have since been labelled as top-secret and classified by the FBI which is investigating whether her negligence constitutes a criminal act.

There is a very real possibility that she could be indicted before the general election in November.

With that in mind, the idea that Clinton not only broke her oath to maintain secrecy of highly sensitive data, but perhaps made that available to anyone who wanted to look at it, is very damaging for her. Lazar claims that's what happened though, as by investigating Clinton's friend, Sidney Blumenthal, he was able to hack his AOL account and discover the location of the Clinton mail server.

hilaryclinton

Source: Wikimedia

From there it was a simple matter to get inside the server, though the emails didn't interest him as they were mostly related to mundane political matters, he said to Fox News (via Telegraph).

Lazar currently resides in a Virginia jail, where he awaits trial charged with hacking email accounts of both former Bush presidents, as well as former secretary of state, Colin Powell. However he is not charged with hacking the Clinton server.

Clinton's representatives claim that Lazar is lying and state that he offers no proof of ever having accessed the server. They also suggest that had he accessed it, he would likely have leaked information, much the same way as he did with the Bush email accounts.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While I can understand the Clinton-camp's suggestion that Lazar would have leaked emails if he did have access to them, unless the hacker is a big Bernie or Trump supporter, you have to wonder why he would make it up.

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Webcam streamer wants a job https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/webcam-streamer-wants-a-job/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/webcam-streamer-wants-a-job/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2014 10:14:02 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=223366 Are you looking for someone that has a background in breaking webcam security? Perhaps a penchant for highlighting security flaws in major corporate software in the public eye? Then consider hiring on the man responsible for the recent webcam hacking scandal, as he's added a job listing to his site, requesting interested parties get in …

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Are you looking for someone that has a background in breaking webcam security? Perhaps a penchant for highlighting security flaws in major corporate software in the public eye? Then consider hiring on the man responsible for the recent webcam hacking scandal, as he's added a job listing to his site, requesting interested parties get in touch.

Or at least he did, late yesterday. Already the advert appears to have disappeared, which makes you wonder if he received a lot of interest, or none at all and it was clear it was a fruitless effort. Before it was taken down however, the job listing read: “Programmer is looking for a good remote job. Skills: Linux, FreeBSD, C/C++, Python, MySQL,” before listing contact details.

feed
Originally the site had many people's home camera feeds freely available

The site now appears as it did before, albeit with cameras filtered so that only public location cameras are shown and no privacy invading sources are available for viewing on the site. Initially cameras all over the world were streamed, including ones being used as baby monitor.

This hack has been used as a good reminder to set up a stronger password than the default one when using cloud enabled cameras.

As well as the original creator filtering out many of the feeds available on the site, a lot of people in the UK have followed the story and improved their own security, as well as requesting that their feed be removed. This has led to the site's some 500+ British camera feeds being reduced to just a handful that show public places.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Pointing out flaws is quite a solid way to showcase your skills at security provisioning, but doing so as publicly as this seems unlikely to net you many friends. What do you guys think?

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Reddit made a killing on the celebrity nude scandal https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/reddit-made-a-killing-on-the-celebrity-nude-scandal/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/reddit-made-a-killing-on-the-celebrity-nude-scandal/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2014 13:18:57 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=211327 Reddit recently banned the main groups associated with the “Fappening,” which saw prominent female celebrities' personal photographs leaked onto the internet and distributed via links and uploads to relevant subreddits and just about everywhere else on the web. However before Reddit dropped the banhammer on all forums associated with the event, it earned a lot of …

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Reddit recently banned the main groups associated with the “Fappening,” which saw prominent female celebrities' personal photographs leaked onto the internet and distributed via links and uploads to relevant subreddits and just about everywhere else on the web. However before Reddit dropped the banhammer on all forums associated with the event, it earned a lot of money through advertising and Reddit gold purchases.

Reddit gold, which allows users to give each other a small bump in status for a month, costs around £2.50 per person, with each subreddit getting a little counter to tell them how much Reddit server time could be purchased with all of the group's gold payments. In the few days that the main subreddit related to the photo leak was active, it managed to generate enough gold payments to pay for 27 days worth of Reddit server time. That's huge, considering the amount of traffic the site deals with.

redditban2

When discussing the banning of the subreddits involved in distributing the photos and other activities (which are claimed to be the ones that led to their banning), it was said that the site “hit new traffic milestones,” ones which the administrators felt embarrassed by. This does however mean lots of advertising revenue as well. Wired suggests that the site attracted as many as 141 million visitors in a single day (1st September) and there were many more 10s of millions of page views on ensuing days, which could have led to a lot of advertising dollars.

This has led to a lot of criticism from those behind the original subreddits and many industry commenters, with people considering Reddit as profiting from the scandal and then moral grandstanding by deleting it after the original wave of interest had begun to fade away.

Reddit on the other hand has stated – relatively – clearly, that it removes illegal content and essentially doesn't dig too deeply into anything else unless it could potentially cause legal issues down the line. Hence why there are so many morally deplorable subreddits still active.

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think? Did Reddit take part in profiteering when it came to the celebrity photo hacking? Or did it just take a bit longer to react than it perhaps should have? 

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Book pricing on Amazon can penalise Kindle users https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/jules/book-pricing-on-amazon-can-penalise-kindle-users/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/jules/book-pricing-on-amazon-can-penalise-kindle-users/#comments Sat, 24 Nov 2012 09:41:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=116543 It's not hard to see where the real costs are incurred by book publishers. You have trees to cultivate, chop,  transport, mill, form into paper, transport again, inks to make, covers to design, writers-editors-publishers to pay and, at the end of all that, you still need to ship a heavy product across the world in …

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It's not hard to see where the real costs are incurred by book publishers. You have trees to cultivate, chop,  transport, mill, form into paper, transport again, inks to make, covers to design, writers-editors-publishers to pay and, at the end of all that, you still need to ship a heavy product across the world in order to take your money. Kindle must be cheaper. Surely. KitGuru gets a nasty surprise in bed on a cold Saturday morning.

Go back just one generation and the sure fire sign that a bloke had forgotten to buy his nearest and dearest something special for a holiday or other celebration, was all around you at the local petrol station. Cheap chocolates, dying flowers, rash-inducing perfume and a host of nasty novelty gifts were everywhere – every time you went to pay for your freshly pumped benzine products.

But you only noticed them when, in a blind panic, you realised it was Christmas or Valentines or her birthday and you had nothing.

In the modern era, we can look to Aria, eBuyer and Amazon for last minute gifts (with varying degrees of technology involved). Add in the Amazon Kindle and you are ‘in the zone' when it comes to buying presents. Download-city awaits your credit card details and a valid delivery address.

When it comes to books, Kindles have done away with the need for mass-tree-slaughter and all the oil/gas/chemicals that go into making hardbacks etc, so not only is the Kindle more convenient – it's also very much cheaper. So downloading a Kindle book will only be a fraction of the price of a paperback – and a hell of a lot less than a brand new hardback.

Or so you would think.

It's hard to see why a hardback version of a book would be almost 10% cheaper than its Kindle equivalent – but that is exactly the kind of profiteering we have seen this morning. We're going with the word profiteering, because there's no way on earth that the Kindle version being more expensive does anything more than penalise those who would prefer to be nice to the planet and have their product delivered quicker – direct to their reading device.

If you add in the fact that once you've read a book, it has a re-sale value, then the economics get even worse.

Congratulations to whichever genius is setting this pricing: Your planet thanks you.

KitGuru says: That's just one example. There are others. We can't think of a single justification – can you?

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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McDonald’s falls victim to Twitter honesty https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jules/mcdonalds-falls-victim-to-twitter-honesty/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jules/mcdonalds-falls-victim-to-twitter-honesty/#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:00:50 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=75692 Selective blindness can affect businesses as easily as it can individuals. In the case of tech-mad young execs at McDonald's, it led to the kicking off of two conversations that they quickly realised were heading in the wrong direction. KitGuru covers itself in camouflage and heads off to the bushes, to listen to what the …

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Selective blindness can affect businesses as easily as it can individuals. In the case of tech-mad young execs at McDonald's, it led to the kicking off of two conversations that they quickly realised were heading in the wrong direction. KitGuru covers itself in camouflage and heads off to the bushes, to listen to what the little birdies are tweeting about.

There can be little doubt that McDonald's has evolved as company. On 13th November 1974, a small hamburger joint opened in Woolwich (one of London's rougher parts) and queues quickly formed to see what this new fangled American burger stuff was all about. No one gave a crap about animal rights, CFCs, sustainable resources or recycling. It was affordable food you could eat with your hands – and it instantly made Wimpy bars look tired and dreary.

In its first decade of UK business, McDonald's was considered a great treat – especially for children. Toward the end of the last century, public opinion changed and McDonald's had to scramble to ensure that the meat in its burgers wasn't just testicles, snouts and lips. Packaging changed out of all recognition, salads were introduced, children were offered fruit options and the drinks menu started to include more and more ‘zero cal slurps' (as a sideline, Coca Cola has told reporters that for the 2012 Olympics, 75% of the drinks it provides will be sugar-free or 100% diet).

So what's the story with Mc-D's and the TwitterNet ?

Early one morning, filled with the joy of its new campaigns toward a leaner planet and a cleaner/shinier brand, McDonald's kick started one conversation about ‘Meeting Our Farmers' and another which encouraged the online community to ‘Tell us your McDonald's-related stories'.

It looks as though momentum was on the side of these threads – and they quickly grew to around 1,600 conversations. Unfortunately for Ronald-shaped PR folks, the majority seemed to be complaints. Killer comments included:-

  • Fingernails in my Big Mac
  • Bit a McDouble and broke a tooth – on what exactly I do not know
  • Hospitalised after eating there, became a vegetarian and never went back
  • Turned my back on McDonald's and lost more than 3 stone in 6 months

The McDonald's PR folk were also keen to shot down conversations which pointed to YouTube films about how the pigs etc are treated during the course of their short lives.

At the time of writing, the execs responsible had not been sacked [There's still time – Ed] and McDonald's continues to Produce enough meals at a rate that's fast enough to feed everyone on the planet once every 100 days.

Congratulations to the McDonald's marketing bods who inspired the creation of this collage.

KitGuru says: These 2 ‘smart ideas' alone managed to generate 2% of the world's McDonald's related stories in just a few hours. Given a bit more effort, McDonald's could have created themselves a genuine PR disaster that would have cost millions in advertising to overcome. Well done. Proves that PR still has the ‘power-to-weight' win over traditional advertising.

Comments below or in the KitGuru forums.

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