Georgia Accuses Homeland Security Of Attempting To Hack State's Election Database

 

Georgia Accuses Homeland Security Of Attempting To Hack State's Election Database

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-12-08 16:44

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp is anxiously wondering, as are we, why someone with a Department Of Homeland Security IP address would try to hack into his State's voter registration database.  Even though DHS offered cyber security help to states prior to the election, the Wall Street Journal notes that Georgia was one of the states that specifically denied assistance.

The secretary of state of Georgia is asking the Department of Homeland Security to explain what appears to be an attempted breach of the state's voter registration database by someone in the federal government.

 

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson dated Thursday, Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the state had discovered an unsuccessful attempt to breach the firewall of state computer systems. That attempt was linked to an IP address associated with DHS, he said.

 

"At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network," wrote Mr. Kemp, a Republican. "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."

 

The alleged attempted intrusion by the federal government on a state computer system responsible for election security was detected by a third-party security firm working for the state of Georgia. The attempt was unsuccessful, according to the state. The computers also house information about company incorporations.

According to a letter written by Kemp to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the attempted intrusion occurred 1 week after the election on November 15, 2016 at 8:43AM and came from an IP address associated with DHS (216.81.81.80). 

 

Of course, since the hacking a state's election database it technically illegal, even for DHS, Kemp had some fairly pointed questions for Johnson on who authorized the scan and how many other states were scanned without authorization. 

 

Meanwhile, the potential hacking followed threats from Jeh Johnson leading up to election day to declare election systems "critical infrastructure" which would have given the federal government more authority over state databases. 

The Department of Homeland Security made a major push in advance of November's elections to help states secure election systems against possible hacking, as fears of foreign interference in the U.S. election process reached a fever pitch in the months leading up to Election Day.

 

The department also considered declaring election systems "critical infrastructure," which would have given the federal government additional authority to protect the systems. DHS didn't take that step, however, as many states expressed concern about additional federal authority over their election systems and said the constitution provided states the right to run their own elections.

 

As a result of some of the concerns, the department clarified that assistance on election-related security matters was voluntary and encouraged states to take advantage of DHS resources and expertise to help secure state election systems.

 

"DHS assistance is strictly voluntary and does not entail regulation, binding directives, and is not offered to supersede state and local control over the process," Mr. Johnson, the DHS chief, said in September.

 

Georgia was one of the states that had declined the federal government's assistance for election security, citing state sovereignty. "Right now, we're just demanding answers," said David Dove, a top aide to the Georgia secretary of state. "My boss, Secretary Kemp, has been a very vocal critic of the Department of Homeland Security declaring election systems critical infrastructure."

After all the talk about Russian hackers, wouldn't it be just perfect if it turns out that the Obama administration was the only group to actually attempt to illegally hack into a state election database?  That said, we won't hold our breath waiting for Jill Stein and disaffected Hillary supporters to express their outrage over this incident.

 

Brian Kemp's full letter can be viewed below:

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Adam Schiff to Tucker Carlson: 'You're Carrying Water for the Kremlin'

 

Adam Schiff to Tucker Carlson: 'You're Carrying Water for the Kremlin'

by Matt Welch

Reason.com Full Feed / 2016-12-08 12:24

As Ed Krayewski pointed out earlier, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) yesterday accused a Yahoo News anchor of being "biased" about Russia after she told him (at his demand) that she immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet republic of Moldova. Sadly, that wasn't the only instance of a congressman accusing a journalist of possible dual loyalty over the Russia issue even yesterday.

From the opposite direction of the great Putin divide, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) went further, if a bit more jokily, on Fox News host Tucker Carlson. After a contested, interruption-heavy exchange with Carlson about whether Democrats had proof that Putin knowingly hacked John Podesta's emails, Schiff said "You're carrying water for the Kremlin....You're going to have to move your show to RT." Watch:

I lean much closer to Schiff than Rohrabacher when it comes to general hostility toward Vladimir Putin, but I'm squarely on Team Tucker (and Bianna!) here. Fact-free accusations of bias due to loyalty or antipathy to foreign governments are crude coming from anybody, let alone influential congressmen. If there are indeed Russians (or Moldovans) hiding under our national bed, it's gonna take more to prove that case than yelling booga booga.

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Saudi Journalist Banned From Media After Criticizing Trump

 Why the First Amendment is important in the US.....we never want this to happen.

Saudi Journalist Banned From Media After Criticizing Trump

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-12-08 01:19

Submitted by MiddleEastEye.net via TheAntiMedia.org,

Saudi authorities banned journalist Jamal Khashoggi from writing in newspapers, appearing on TV and attending conferences, the Alkhalij Aljadid reported in Arabic.

This came after Khashoggi's remarks during a presentation he made at a Washington think-tank on 10 November in which he was critical of Donald Trump's ascension to the US presidency.

Two weeks ago, an official Saudi source was cited by the Saudi News Agency as saying that Khashoggi did not represent the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in his interviews or statements.

#Saudi regime journalist, Jamal Khashoggi banned by the government from speaking for criticizing Donald Trump https://t.co/BijTT9T4J2

— Jim Early (@mkearley2008) November 26, 2016

"The author Jamal Khashoggi does not represent the government of Saudi Arabia or its positions at any level, and … his opinions only represent his personal views not that of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," said a ministry source quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

The official Saudi position on Trump's election was perhaps more accurately reflected by a former Saudi diplomat in mid-November who told the Washington Post: "Certainly, we are not expecting Mr Trump to be worse than Mr Obama was," said Abdullah al-Shamri. Most members of the royal family, he said, "are happy with the result. We are closer to Republicans psychologically."......

Law Firm That Sued 20-Year-Old Crash Victim Over Negative Review Now Owes $26,831 In Legal Fees

Law Firm That Sued 20-Year-Old Crash Victim Over Negative Review Now Owes $26,831 In Legal Fees:

After being insulted online by a 20-year-old student with back injuries resulting from a collision with a drunk driver, the Khuu law firm of Houston, Texas, claimed it "had no choice" but to burn its already-questionable reputation to the ground file a $100,000+ defamation lawsuit.



Like many other entities, the Khuu law firm felt the best response to a negative review was to get litigious. Unlike many other entities, the Khuu Law firm presumably employed actual lawyers with actual knowledge of actual laws. Presumably. If so, it overrode this knowledge to engage in litigation featuring the internet's favorite tort: "Yelp review I didn't like."



According to Lan Cai -- the student who had the misfortune of initiating contact with Khuu -- a representative from the office showed up at her house unannounced and questioned her while she was still in her underwear. Shortly after making a bad first impression, the company made a bad second impression by ghosting its new client. Lawyers at the firm only seemed interested in engaging with Cai when they had a lawsuit to serve.



Backlash ensued and the Popehat Signal was (unofficially) lit. Houston attorney Michael Fleming picked up Lan Cai's case pro bono and has now obtained an anti-SLAPP judgment in favor of his client. Joe Mullin of Ars Technica reports:

Fleming filed a motion arguing that, first and foremost, Cai's social media complaints were true. Second, she couldn't do much to damage the reputation of a firm that already had multiple poor reviews. He argued the lawsuit was a clear SLAPP (strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Like many states, Texas has a law allowing for SLAPP suits to be thrown out at early stages of litigation.



Ultimately, the judge agreed with Fleming, ordering [PDF] the Khuu firm to pay $26,831.55 in attorneys' fees.

The news of the firm's loss has resulted in a second wave of one-star reviews at Yelp -- one of those side effects litigious entities fail to consider before lunging forward with "might makes right" legal bullying. At this point, the Khuu law office is best known for:



(a) mistreating a potential client with a broken back, and



(b) losing a lawsuit.



Neither of these is going to help it attract new customers. If it had just left it alone, its reputation -- while never stellar -- wouldn't have been destroyed completely.

I wish a certain (tv) star would think before he tweets

 

I wish a certain (tv) star would think before he tweets

by thonyc

The Renaissance Mathematicus / 2016-12-07 05:18

On a couple of occasions I have blogged about the publically displayed history of science ignorance of mega-star science entertainer Neil deGrasse Tyson (NdGT). On Sunday I stumbled over one his tweets, which stridently proclaimed:

 

If you wished upon that first Star you saw tonight in twilight,

then it will not likely come true. You wished on planet Venus

Venus is always brighter than all other planets or stars as seen from Earth. The second brightest object on the image is Jupiter
Source: Wikimedia Commons

My first reaction was that this tweet was very mean spirited and to ask myself what NdGT's intention was in tweeting it. Then as a historian of astronomy I replied to this tweet by pointing out that from antiquity up to the beginning of the eighteenth century all illuminated celestial bodies – stars, comets, planets – were referred to as stars and so one would still be wishing upon a star. Now NdGT has a trillion sycophants followers, so the last thing I expected was a response from the great man himself to my tweet. Imagine my surprise when I got just that:

 

The 7 "planetes" (Greek for "wanderer") were distinct from stars:

Sun Moon Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn.

 

Slam -Bam! A killer etymological put down or at least I assume that was what NdGT thought he had achieved. Unfortunately he had just ridden himself deeper into the mire. If we actually consult an etymological dictionary on the origins of the term planet we discover the following:

Planet (n): late Old English planete, from Old French planete (Modern French planète), from Late Latin planeta, from Greek planetes, from (asteres) planetai "wandering (stars)," from planasthai "to wander…

Oh dear, planet doesn't mean wanderer in the original Greek; it means wandering star! The Greeks did indeed differentiate between fixed stars, our stars, wandering stars, the seven planets and hairy stars (I've always liked that one) the comets, but, and this is the decisive point, they are all stars, as I stated in the first place. Whether NdGT's etymological error was out of ignorance or a result of deliberate quote mining I can't say.

NdGT might have saved himself some embarrassment if he had paused for a moment to consider the etymology of astronomy, the mother discipline of his own profession, astrophysics. Astronomy is also derived from ancient Greek, as was astrology and as I pointed out in another post the two terms were, from their origin up till the late seventeenth century, synonyms. Let's just check out those etymologies shall we.

Astronomy (n): c. 1200, from Old French astrenomie, from Latin astronomia, from Greek astronomia, literally "star arrangement," from astron "star"

Astrology (n): late 14c., from Latin astrologia "astronomy, the science of the heavenly bodies," from Greek astrologia "telling of the stars," from astron "star"

So astrologia, which is the older of the two terms, means the science of the heavenly bodies, which of course includes the planets. Astronmia naturally includes the planets too, as stars.

What evidence can I bring forth that this was still the case in the Early Modern Period? I have no lesser witness than that well-known Elizabethan playwright and poet Will Shakespeare. In his tragedy Romeo and Juliet he refers to the fact that their doom has been predetermined by their astrological fate. Now an astrological horoscope determines the position of the planets along the elliptic, the apparent path of the sun around the earth, so astrology is very much planetary. So how does the good bard describe the astrological doom of his two young lovers?

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life

Note Romeo and Juliet are star-crossed, although it is the planets that determine their fate. In fact the expression ones fate is written in the stars is still very much used today in the English language.

I do have a last sad note for NdGT concerning his original tweet. Most people probably associate the expression 'to wish upon a star' with the pop song When You Wish Upon a Star originally from the Walt Disney film Pinocchio from 1940, which has been covered by many, many artists. However the tradition is much older and in fact goes back at least to the ancient Romans. The tradition says that if you make a wish when you see the first star of the evening then that wish will come true. Now the first star of the evening is 'the evening star' also known as the planet Venus and in fact the tradition derives from the Roman worship of Venus their goddess of love, so if you did make a wish upon seeing Venus, as NdGT claimed in his original tweet, then you would be doing exactly the right thing to have your wish come true. You are just offering up a prayer to the divine Venus.

The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli c. 1485–1486
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The saddest aspect of this brief collision on Twitter is just how many of NdGT's sycophants followers retweeted and/or liked his etymology of the term planet tweet thinking he had brilliantly seen of the bothersome history of astronomy troll. I wouldn't mind him spouting history of science crap if he was some brain damaged loony with 15 followers on Twitter but unfortunately he is the most well-known and influential English language science communicator in the world and his false utterances mislead and misinform a lot of trusting people.

 

 

 

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A Cheaper, Simpler Obamacare Plan - Bloomberg View

A Cheaper, Simpler Obamacare Plan - Bloomberg View

As a frequent critic of Obamacare, I'm often asked, "Well, how would you solve the problem? Huh?" The implication is that if I don't have a solution, I should shut up and endorse the one Democrats provided.

This is not sound policy thinking. As I am fond of saying, "The existence of a problem does not therefore imply the existence of a solution." It is not inevitably true that there is some policy solution that would be better than the status quo, even if we really dislike the status quo. For example, Russia getting all frisky in Ukraine makes me nervous as hell. I would like President Barack Obama to make it stop. That doesn't mean that Obama can make it stop. It is quite possible that any strenuous attempt to make it stop would simply imbue the Russian government with even more theatrical military ambitions.

As it happens, however, I did have an alternative plan for the Affordable Care Act, one that I was very fond of. It preserved the basic market mechanisms in health care while protecting people from catastrophic risks. It was so simple it could be explained in a couple of sentences. And it wouldn't cost that much. Ready? Here we go: The government picks up 100 percent of health-care costs above 15 to 20 percent of adjusted gross income. For people below 150 percent of the poverty line, there's Medicaid, which picks up basically all your costs. Hard to game, preserves consumer incentives to shop for prices and keeps people out of bankruptcy....

Tucker Carlson aims at elites - Business Insider

Tucker Carlson aims at elites - Business Insider

It was the 7 p.m. hour on Fox News and famed New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof found himself in the hot seat, forced to defend a column he had authored, in part, about President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters.

“I guess what I’m here for is empathy,” host Tucker Carlson told Kristof, noting the Times journalist had an extensive background traveling to some of the most troubled places on the globe.

“I’ve never read a column by you that suggests the people in those places — who support dictators oftentimes — are racists or bad people,” Carlson said, as he placed a printed copy of the column on the studio’s glass desk. “You would never write that about a poor person in the third world. But you’re implying that about your fellow Americans.”

Kristof rejected Carlson’s characterization of his work, but the newly minted Fox News primetime host, who previously hosted shows on CNN and MSNBC, calmly pressed forward.....

Progress on Poverty

http://humanprogress.org/blog/year-of-the-1-percent?utm_content=buffer4397b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The Economist's graph reminded me of another graph, which also shows two lines that eventually cross but tells a very different story. Despite population growth, there are fewer people living in extreme poverty today than ever before:

How can both graphs be accurate? Poverty can decline even as inequality rises, as long as the total amount of wealth in the world is growing. To ignore this is to fall prey to the "fixed pie fallacy." Throughout most of human history, global wealth hardly changed. But thanks to trade and industrialization, wealth has skyrocketed since the 1900s and continues to climb. At the same time, technological advances have also increased human wellbeing in ways not captured by looking at GDP alone...... 

Russia's Unreliable Aircraft Carrier Just Lost Another Plane

 

Russia's Unreliable Aircraft Carrier Just Lost Another Plane

by Terrell Jermaine Starr on Foxtrot Alpha, shared by Eve Peyser to Gizmodo

Gizmodo / 2016-12-05 19:22

The Admiral Kuznetsov transits the English Channel back in October. Photo credit: Getty Images

Russia's aircraft carrier off the coast of Syria is continuing a fine tradition of being more of a floating joke than an actual warship. Yet another Russian Navy Su-33 fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to land on the gross as hell Admiral Kuznetsov on Saturday.

The crash is the second Russian carrier-launched jet to end up in the drink in just three weeks, according to Aviationist. The cause of the incident reportedly was due to a snap of the arresting cable on the carrier, which is normally positioned across the decks of air carriers to slow jets landing at high rates of speed.

The pilot on the Su-33 was able to eject from the aircraft and was later saved by a search-and-rescue team. On November 14th, a MiG-29K crashed while trying to land on the aging Kuznetsov. That pilot also was able to eject from his plane and was later saved by a rescue team, according to the New York Times.

In case you haven't heard, the Admiral Kuznetsov is a broken down, black smoke exhausting piece of shit that should have been decommissioned years ago. It's so broken down that it sails with a tug that can pull it away in case it breaks down—which it does a lot.

The plumbing is so bad many of the toilets cannot be used. Seriously. It is the hooptie of the sea.

The Russian military stationed the the Admiral Kuznetsov off the coast of Syria to demonstrate its show of force in the region. The problem, however, is that the carrier wasn't designed for the kinds of missions for which it is being used.

"This carrier was never designed for projecting power on shore," said Pavel K. Baev, who studies Russian military reform at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, according to The Washington Post. "The fact of the military matter is that this deployment adds nothing, just absolutely nothing to the capabilities" that Russia has on the ground in Syria.

It doesn't even have a catapult system that is common with modern aircraft carriers. According to Popular Mechanics, the ship has had a number of mechanical issues. In 2009, its electrical system caught fire, leaving one crewman dead; in 2012, it had to be tugged away because it broke down in the Bay of Biscay.

Naval experts have said there is no practical reason for the Admiral Kuznetsov to be in operation, other than to prove a maritime might it really doesn't have. Foreign Policy wondered in September if it could even stay afloat during its mission off the coast of Syria.

If you do a quick Google search on the Kuznetsov, you'll find as plenty of articles clowning its mechanical issues. Which isn't great for Russia, a nation that is trying to prove it can compete with the U.S.military.

The recent incidents on the Admiral Kuznetsov are a huge public relations blow to the Russian military. Moreover, it reveals that Russia doesn't really care about the safety of its servicemen and women. Russia news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov essentially blowing off the latest crash incident.

"The talk, in the first place, is about the fact that the pilot has remained alive," Peskov said. Interestingly enough, that is what most people who drive beaters say about about their rides.

Ivory Tower Economist Tries To School Dilbert's Scott Adams On Trade... Fails

 With whom do you agree?

Ivory Tower Economist Tries To School Dilbert's Scott Adams On Trade... Fails

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-12-05 18:50

Submitted by Thad Beversdorf via FirstRebuttal.com,

Today Donald J. Boudreaux, who is Professor of Economics and Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wrote an open letter to Dilbert creator Scott Adams.  The letter was a rebuttal to Scott disagreeing with Michigan Rep Justin Amash about Trump's trade policy.

Justin Amash had tweeted out that tariffs will hurt the consumer in higher prices.  Scott retorted that the tariffs will not be applied because the threat of applying a tariff on firms who chase cheap foreign labor but then sell that production back to the US consumer they just laid off will disincentivize the firms from leaving in the first place.  It was then that Mr. Boudreaux jumped in, stating unequivocally that Scott is wrong and Justin is right.

Boudreaux argues that while he agrees the tariff would actually not be applied it would stifle competition and thus consumers would pay a higher price.  Boudreaux seems to imply that low consumer prices are a top priority of trade policy.  Below is the main argument within Boudreaux's open letter to Scott Adams.

Rep. Amash is right and you are wrong.  Although no formal tax collection is triggered if Mr. Trump's threats prevent all offshoring, Trump's tariff – by restricting competition – would artificially reduce outputs and raise prices.  American consumers would pay unnecessarily higher prices, an outcome inseparable from the very purpose of the tariff.  That consumers pay these extra, unnecessary amounts to domestic producers rather than to domestic customs agents is irrelevant: the tariff forces all consumers of these products to pay extra, unnecessary amounts to some small group of fellow Americans who, rather than earn these higher payments, extract them using threats of state coercion.

Let me explain the logical fallacies that Mr. Boudreaux fails to recognize in his chivalrous attempt to defend Rep Amash and our existing international trade agreements (note there is nothing free trade about these agreements).

1. Boudreaux's entire argument is based on an unsubstantiated notion that offsetting the labor cost savings from cheap foreign labor with a tariff somehow limits competition.  This is equivalent to saying American production limits competition.    There are currently 28.5 million private firms producing in the US, more than ever before.  I've never seen any data to substantiate that American production limits competition. In fact, I find it quite an absurd proposition.  Unless Boudreaux can substantiate that claim, it simply cannot be accepted.  And if the basis of his argument is unsound then the rest of it is invalid.
2. Secondly is the implication that US firms chase cheap foreign labor so that they can pass those cost savings onto the consumer.  Price models are a function of what the market will bear, not cost.  The point of the cost savings is to drive profits, profits which over the past 5 years are paid directly to shareholders.  Dividends have almost no money multiplier effect.  And so reallocating labor income, which has the highest money multiplier effect, to profit is a net economic value destroyer not creator.
3. Even if consumers paid a higher price as a result of the tariff, which we know isn't true based on points 1 & 2 above, the offset of that is they would be paying a higher price with labor income earned as opposed to credit or welfare.  Meaning if I can keep my job, I'm ok paying a slightly higher price because while I might be able to buy less things I can still support my family without private or public debt.  And so to suggest the top objective of trade or any economic policy should be getting the lowest possible price is another absurd proposition.
4. Boudreaux suggests the tariff is state coercion yet fails to recognize the tariff is a reaction to a state intervention of free markets i.e. international trade agreements that allow labor cost arbitrage to exist without the naturally higher risks of the undeveloped nations that offer the cheaper labor (the cheap labor and higher risk being a function of the same underdeveloped societal infrastructure).  Higher return means higher risk.  Lower labor cost means higher ROI.  Higher ROI means higher risk.  But through state coercion, the higher risk is negated leaving just the higher ROI.  This is not free market.  This is state intervention.  The tariff is being used to level the playing field so to speak.

Mr. Boudreaux, while I appreciate your zeal for trade agreements, I am slightly surprised as to the naivety of your argument.  You haven't given the readers enough credit.  Something you PhD economists are going to be facing much more of in the coming years.  There is a movement to educate and draw in the American public to such economic discussions.  We will be better prepared to understand your theoretical, applicable and logical fallacies.  You should take note, and be better prepared next time.

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