Anonymous Exposed IRC Federal

If you remember, hacker group Anonymous published data from a number of Turkish government sites online some time ago. Now the group has posted information from the FBI contractor IRC Federal on the Internet as well.

Anonymous called the new operation “Fuck FBI Friday”, and posted materials from IRC Federal. The dumped data includes contracts, development schematics, private documents and e-mails. All information was posted to the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay. Anonymous released a statement, saying that the ownage of another government-contracted company, IRC Federal, is now exposed. The company in question is accused by hackers of bragging about their multi-million dollar partnership with such agencies as the FBI, Army, and NASA to name a few, and about selling out their “skills” to the American empire. Apparently, Anonymous didn’t like that and dropped their databases and private emails, while defacing their professional looking site.

The dumped information includes different contracts, development schematics, and other documents, all found in e-mails. The materials in question were intended for different government institutions. For example, there was a proposal for the FBI to develop a project aimed at reducing terrorist and criminal activity through revealing the identities of people who might pose risk to the country. Besides, the hackers found fingerprinting contracts for the Department of Justice and biometrics development for the military. Among other data published online there was login info to different VPNs and a number of Department of Energy login access panels.

Before Anonymous started the drop, it published a personal message to the IRC Federal and its employees, asking them to stop working for the oligarchy and start working against it if they placed any value on freedom. The employees were encouraged to stop helping the corporations and a government using unethical means to protect entertainment and other industries.

The latest dump is a bit more than 100MB in size, and its implications still remain to be seen. According to the rumours, the release was planned to be made on the 4th of July, but apparently the dump was delayed until now due to unknown reasons. Operation “AntiSec” is on its way, though.
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FBI reportedly looks into News Corp. hacking allegations

Media baron Rupert Murdoch's troubles are spreading across the pond from Britain to the USA.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into allegations that Murdoch's News Corp. tried to hack into the phone messages of U.S. 9/11 victims and families, a federal law enforcement official said Thursday.

The official, who has been briefed on the matter but declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said the review was based on concerns raised by Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., and Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., among others.
King, who heads the Homeland Security Committee, is from a Long Island district that was home to many victims of the terrorist attacks in 2001.

The lawmakers suggest that allegations against News Corp. in Great Britain— including paying off British law enforcement authorities for news tips — violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it a crime for companies with U.S. holdings to bribe foreign officials. They also want to know whether any U.S. citizens' privacy was violated.

"It is revolting to imagine that members of the media would seek to compromise the integrity of a public official for financial gain in the pursuit of yellow journalism,"' King said in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller. "The 9/11 families have suffered egregiously, but unfortunately they remain vulnerable against unjustifiable parasitic strains."

News Corp. shares tumbled 2.3% to $15.99, reflecting concerns about fallout on other News Corp. properties, including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
Department of Justice officials declined to discuss details of any review. "The department does not comment specifically on investigations, though anytime we see evidence of wrongdoing, we take appropriate action,'' spokesperson Laura Sweeney said. "The department has received letters from several members of Congress regarding allegations related to News Corp., and we're reviewing those."

The hacking scandal has ignited a political firestorm in Britain, prompting News Corp. to shut News of the World. The London tabloid, along with other Murdoch publications, is under investigation for possibly targeting the phone mail of a wide array of British celebrities and accessing the personal financial and medical records of former prime minister Gordon Brown's family.

Among the most egregious allegations: that News of the World hacked into the phone messages of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in 2002. A Dowler family attorney has said World reporters deleted some messages, giving the family false hope that their daughter was alive.

The hacking scandal destroyed political support for News Corp.'s planned acquisition of a 61% stake in satellite TV operator British Sky Broadcasting, and Murdoch scuttled a $12 billion bid Wednesday. The company controls 39% of BSkyB.

Murdoch and son James, News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, initially refused to appear before a British Parliament committee investigating the hacking and bribery allegations, but they said Thursday that they will testify next week.

Rupert Murdoch, commenting on The Wall Street Journal's website Thursday, said he and fellow News Corp. executives handled the phone hacking scandal fallout "extremely well in every way possible," despite a few "minor mistakes."
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Government To Be Blamed for Slow Connection Speed

The article on Engadget explains what can possibly be the reason why the United States has such slow connections in some parts of the country.

Indeed, according to the article, lots of Europeans are paying less for faster broadband connections than American subscribers on average. And the reason for this trend is simple: the government.

A similar situation with the connection speeds was in the United Kingdom – poorer quality services, little competition, and high costs. However, it was only so until the government took the decision to force the incumbent industries to take part in “local loop unbundling” and push competition in to the Internet market, which allowed broadband speeds to rise and costs to fall.

The article in question also points out one of the most widespread reasons that broadband providers won’t allow users to have faster and better Internet speeds – the land mass excuse. However, the size of the United States may be just a red herring. In fact, most of the region between Boston and Washington, as well as the California coast between San Francisco and San Diego, are as densely populated as most of Europe, including the UK. All those areas are home to about 1/4 of all the US citizens, which means that the US is really a big country, but a lot of the country is relatively empty space.

So, the industry experts are sure that the argument that the country is too spread out is nonsense. In reality, the Verizon’s and AT&T’s opposition to competition at home is caused by their fears to lose. AT&T claims it supports competition, but warns that it can’t develop “one-size fits all” regulatory system to implement it everywhere. The excuse the company mentions is that more American homes have the option of buying broadband service from cable companies than British ones.

However, the researches carried out in the United Kingdom suggested otherwise, revealing that lots of homes in London have cable access, but its prices have fallen alongside that of DSL service. Worse still, the situation is absolutely the same in Canada, where 130kbps download speed and 60kbps upload speed for over $70 may be the norm. Meanwhile, by European standards, that’s almost unacceptable. At the same time, the governments of US and Canada are supposed to encourage competition on the market, but they just won’t.
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