Daily Archives: August 4, 2021

U.S. intelligence officials face bipartisan congressional pressure to explain their use of surveillance powers, following a rebuke from a federal judge and Fox News host Tucker Carlson's high-profile dispute with the National Security Agency.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote a top intelligence official, requesting an investigation of Carlson's allegation the NSA violated his privacy. "The NSA publicly responded to Mr. Carlson's allegations with a statement on Twitter that frankly only created more questions."

Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not dispute the NSA's denial of wrongdoing in Carlson's case. Yet, Rubio's request for "a formal inquiry" into Carlson's complaint coincided with a sharper rebuke of the FBI, which has drawn bipartisan ire due to a federal judge's revelation of "pervasive" misuse of data collected by the NSA.

"We each share an obligation to protect Americans' civil liberties," Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz and California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren wrote in a Tuesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. "However, the FBI has repeatedly violated the civil liberties of Americans through widespread misuse of Section 702 data."

TUCKER CARLSON'S NAME IN NSA INTERCEPTS REVEALED THROUGH 'UNMASKING': REPORT

Section 702 is a provision of federal law that allows the NSA to collect the communications of foreign targets overseas without a warrant. That surveillance authority looms over both controversies, as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge revealed FBI officials have failed to follow the rules designed to prevent the Section 702 program from being used in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.

"The FBI's failure to properly apply its querying standard when searching Section 702-acquired information was more pervasive than was previously believed," the judge wrote in a November 18, 2020, opinion that the Office of the Director of Intelligence published in April.

Carlson, for his part, has accused President Joe Biden's administration of "spying" on him and planning to leak his plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I wasn't embarrassed about trying to interview Putin. He's obviously newsworthy," Carlson said last month. "But still, in this case, I decided to keep it quiet. I figured that any kind of publicity would rattle the Russians and make the interview less likely to happen. But the Biden administration found out anyway, by reading my emails."

NSA officials denied that Carlson was a "target" of surveillance, while his account spurred outside analysts to surmise the U.S. spy agencies tasked with monitoring the communications of Putin's associates detected Carlson's interview request a phenomenon known as "incidental" collection.

"By law, I should have been identified internally merely as a U.S. journalist or American journalist," Carlson said. "But that's not how I was identified. It was identified by name. I was unmasked."

Rubio, following Carlson's demand for an explanation from National Intelligence director Avril Haines and NSA Director Paul Nakasone, urged Haines to coordinate with the NSA to launch a "formal inquiry" into both aspects of the controversy: the initial information gathering and the alleged unmasking.

However, the senator did not dispute the NSA's denial and suggested a transparent investigation might clear the air.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Rubio wrote to Haines. "As such, it is essential that the IC under your leadership hold itself to account if misconduct has occurred, and convincingly reassure an American public increasingly attuned to the perception of widespread misconduct where it has not occurred."

Spartz, Lofgren, and 15 other House lawmakers took up the FISA court judge's findings rather than Carlson's complaint. They signaled to Wray they are confident the FBI is guilty of "misuse of raw Section 702 data," although they did not refer to Carlson. They set a deadline for the FBI chief to schedule a classified briefing on the controversy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

"The FBI has systematically failed to comply with Section 702 restrictions and its own regulations to protect Americans' civil liberties," Spartz, the Indiana Republican, said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the release of the Aug. 2 letter. "The core function of the government is to protect our constitutional rights, and members of Congress should be briefed by FBI officials regarding the bureau's efforts to remediate this issue."

Original Location: Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA

Read the rest here:
Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA - Denver Gazette

As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

Thats it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is turning a device off then back on again can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones wont stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agencys cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a best practices guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

Id say probably once a week, whenever I think of it, he said.

Almost always in arms reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

I always think of phones as like our digital soul, said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests its significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone reflects, in part, a change in how top hackers are gaining access to mobile devices and the rise of so-called zero-click exploits that work without any user interaction instead of trying to get users to open something thats secretly infected.

Theres been this evolution away from having a target click on a dodgy link, said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an internet civil rights watchdog at the University of Toronto.

Typically, once hackers gain access to a device or network, they look for ways to persist in the system by installing malicious software to a computers root file system. But thats become more difficult as phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google have strong security to block malware from core operating systems, Ziring said.

Its very difficult for an attacker to burrow into that layer in order to gain persistence, he said.

That encourages hackers to opt for in-memory payloads that are harder to detect and trace back to whoever sent them. Such hacks cant survive a reboot, but often dont need to since many people rarely turn their phones off.

Adversaries came to the realization they dont need to persist, Wardle said. If they could do a one-time pull and exfiltrate all your chat messages and your contact and your passwords, its almost game over anyways, right?

A robust market currently exists for hacking tools that can break into phones. Some companies like Zerodium and Crowdfence publicly offer millions of dollars for zero-click exploits.

And hacker-for-hire companies that sell mobile-device hacking services to governments and law enforcement agencies have proliferated in recent years. The most well known is the Israeli-based NSO Group, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of the Catholic clergy.

NSO Group is the focus of the recent exposs by a media consortium that reported the companys spyware tool Pegasus was used in 37 instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others, according to The Washington Post.

The company is also being sued in the U.S. by Facebook for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with a zero-click exploit.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to vetted government agencies for use against terrorists and major criminals. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The persistence of NSOs spyware used to be a selling point of the company. Several years ago its U.S.-based subsidy pitched law enforcement agencies a phone hacking tool that would survive even a factory reset of a phone, according to documents obtained by Vice News.

But Marczak, who has tracked NSO Groups activists closely for years, said it looks like the company first starting using zero-click exploits that forgo persistence around 2019.

He said victims in the WhatsApp case would see an incoming call for a few rings before the spyware was installed. In 2020, Marczak and Citizen Lab exposed another zero-click hack attributed to NSO Group that targeted several journalists at Al Jazeera. In that case, the hackers used Apples iMessage texting service.

There was nothing that any of the targets reported seeing on their screen. So that one was both completely invisible as well as not requiring any user interaction, Marczak said.

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, Marczak said rebooting your phone wont do much to stop determined hackers. Once you reboot, they could simply send another zero-click.

Its sort of just a different model, its persistence through reinfection, he said.

The NSAs guide also acknowledges that rebooting a phone works only sometimes. The agencys guide for mobile devices has an even simpler piece of advice to really make sure hackers arent secretly turning on your phones camera or microphone to record you: dont carry it with you.

Read the original:
NSA recommends rebooting a phone every week to stop hacking - The Indian Express

As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

Thats it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is turning a device off then back on again can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones wont stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agencys cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a best practices guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

Id say probably once a week, whenever I think of it, he said.

Almost always in arms reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

I always think of phones as like our digital soul, said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests its significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone reflects, in part, a change in how top hackers are gaining access to mobile devices and the rise of so-called zero-click exploits that work without any user interaction instead of trying to get users to open something thats secretly infected.

Theres been this evolution away from having a target click on a dodgy link, said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an internet civil rights watchdog at the University of Toronto.

Typically, once hackers gain access to a device or network, they look for ways to persist in the system by installing malicious software to a computers root file system. But thats become more difficult as phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google have strong security to block malware from core operating systems, Ziring said.

Its very difficult for an attacker to burrow into that layer in order to gain persistence, he said.

That encourages hackers to opt for in-memory payloads that are harder to detect and trace back to whoever sent them. Such hacks cant survive a reboot, but often dont need to since many people rarely turn their phones off.

Adversaries came to the realization they dont need to persist, Wardle said. If they could do a one-time pull and exfiltrate all your chat messages and your contact and your passwords, its almost game over anyways, right?

A robust market currently exists for hacking tools that can break into phones. Some companies like Zerodium and Crowdfence publicly offer millions of dollars for zero-click exploits.

And hacker-for-hire companies that sell mobile-device hacking services to governments and law enforcement agencies have proliferated in recent years. The most well known is the Israeli-based NSO Group, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of the Catholic clergy.

NSO Group is the focus of the recent exposs by a media consortium that reported the companys spyware tool Pegasus was used in 37 instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others, according to The Washington Post.

The company is also being sued in the U.S. by Facebook for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with a zero-click exploit.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to vetted government agencies for use against terrorists and major criminals. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The persistence of NSOs spyware used to be a selling point of the company. Several years ago its U.S.-based subsidy pitched law enforcement agencies a phone hacking tool that would survive even a factory reset of a phone, according to documents obtained by Vice News.

But Marczak, who has tracked NSO Groups activists closely for years, said it looks like the company first starting using zero-click exploits that forgo persistence around 2019.

He said victims in the WhatsApp case would see an incoming call for a few rings before the spyware was installed. In 2020, Marczak and Citizen Lab exposed another zero-click hack attributed to NSO Group that targeted several journalists at Al Jazeera. In that case, the hackers used Apples iMessage texting service.

There was nothing that any of the targets reported seeing on their screen. So that one was both completely invisible as well as not requiring any user interaction, Marczak said.

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, Marczak said rebooting your phone wont do much to stop determined hackers. Once you reboot, they could simply send another zero-click.

Its sort of just a different model, its persistence through reinfection, he said.

The NSAs guide also acknowledges that rebooting a phone works only sometimes. The agencys guide for mobile devices has an even simpler piece of advice to really make sure hackers arent secretly turning on your phones camera or microphone to record you: dont carry it with you.

Originally posted here:
Worried about smartphone hackers? Turn your phone off, back on, says NSA - WRAL Tech Wire

Canadian County Sheriff Chris West has been elected to the office of secretary of the National Sheriffs Association.

West who began his second term in office as Canadian County sheriff in January, ran unopposed for the office and was sworn in as NSA Secretary by NSA President Vernon Stanforth of Fayette County, Ohio, in June.

Its an honor to have been able to swear Sheriff West into this very important leadership role with the National Sheriffs Association.His citizens should be very proud that their sheriff is serving not only their county, but sheriffs and their constituents from all across the country, Stanforth.

The National Sheriffs Association is one of the largest nonprofit associations of law enforcement professionals in the United States, representing more than 3,000 elected sheriffs across the nation, and with a total membership of about 14,000 individuals. NSA is dedicated to raising the level of professionalism among sheriffs, their deputies, and others in the field of law enforcement, public safetyand criminal justice.

This is a huge honor, and Im very humbled at the opportunity.I look forward to working with Sheriff Stanforth and other members of the NSA Executive Committee and Board of Directors, as well as other law enforcement professionals, agencies and associations across this great country to be a voice for our communities on public safety and law enforcement issues impacting every citizen of this country, West said.

West also serves as the first vice president of the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association (OSA), and will become President of the OSA in October.

To be considered for this column, please email achievement announcements and photos to LLynn@Oklahoman.com.

Read the rest here:
Achievers: Sheriff elected to National Sheriffs Association Executive Committee - Oklahoman.com

Tucker Carlson was talking to a U.S.-based Kremlin intermediary about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before Fox News hosts accused him of spying on the National Security Agency. , A source familiar with the conversation told Axios.

Important reason: Those sources said US government officials had learned about Carlsons efforts to secure Putins interview.Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach and that was the basis for his extraordinary accusations and then rare. Public refusal By the NSA he was targeted for.

Big picture: Carlsons accusation soon became Cause Celebrity on the right, congratulating one of Americas most prominent conservatives for allegations that it may have been monitored by US intelligence.

Inside story: On June 28, Carlson warned about 3 million viewers the day before, to warn the NSA that it is monitoring our electronic communications and plans to leak them in an attempt. I heard from a whistleblower in the US government who contacted me. To air this show

Fox News Spokesperson In response to our report, We support hosts pursuing interviews and stories without government intervention.

Why Carlson, Or his sources would think that this outreach could be the basis of NSA surveillance or the motivation to cancel his show.

Carlson on wednesday Said Maria Bartiromo Regarding Fox Business, he said that only his executive producer knew about the communication in question and didnt mention it to anyone else, including his wife.

Line spacing: The official NSA statement did not directly deny that Carlsons communications had been wiped out by the agency.

Whats next: Experts say there are some plausible scenarios (including legal scenarios) that may apply.

In the third scenario, Interception may not have been involved in Carlsons communications. The US government regularly monitors the communications of people in Putins orbit, who may have been discussing details of Carlsons interview request.

conspiracy: Two sources familiar with Carlsons communications stated that his two Kremlin mediators live in the United States, but sources said they were both U.S. citizens at the time they communicated with Carlson. , Or both could not be determined if they were on US land.

Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations

Source link Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations

See the article here:
Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations - Illinoisnewstoday.com

After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington during September 2001, Western security organizations started to push for funding so that they could monitor (and in some cases manipulate) use of the internet. The internet was correctly identified as a communicative hub for all sorts of activities both legal and illegal that governments wanted to keep tabs on. Unfortunately, people planning malicious actions are not the only people surveilled by organizations like the National Security Agency and GCHQ. Instead, under the guise of national security, security organizations gained widespread powers allowing them to surveil ordinary people.

The moral panic created during the start of the war on terror provided the perfect excuse for agencies to ramp up their efforts to master the internet. Several high profile and extremely far-reaching programs have come to light in recent years. Each of them is terrifying or comforting in equal measure depending on how you see it. This article will only go into programs run from Britain and the USA. Plenty of other nations, like Russia and China, have conducted similar operations.

PRISM

PRISM is one of the most controversial mass surveillance programs that was uncovered thanks to the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Concocted and conducted by the National Security Agency, PRIMS was a wide reaching attempt to compel large companies into giving customer data to the agency. It specifically targeted Google and Facebook two sites that hold billions of peoples private data. If you are asking yourself do I need a VPN?, the existence of the PRISM program should answer your question with a resounding yes.

Optic Nerve

Operation optic nerve was conducted by GCHQ with the help of the National Security Agency. It gave operatives the ability to view the feeds of all webcams connected to the Yahoo Chat service. 1.8 Million accounts were effected. The program took 1 still image every 5 minutes per user. Millions of the images collected were of a sexual nature. You cant help feeling a little bit uneasy staring into your camera lens and not knowing who might be looking back at you from an office in the home counties or Washington DC. Yahoo is no longer a popular webcam service, but modern video conferencing services may be just as vulnerable to interference.

Operation Socialist

Operation socialist was far from being socially minded. The operation was conducted by the British secret intelligence service GCHQ, which is based in Cheltenham, England. It targeted Belgacom, one of Belgiums biggest telecoms and internet service providers with incredibly advanced malware.

The malware potentially allowed British agents to monitor huge amounts of online data produced in Belgium and across the world with the telecom companys partners. Belgacom noticed irregularities in 2012, but the role of GCHQ in the attack was not immediately obvious. When the Snowden papers were released, the role of the British agency was confirmed. State sponsored hacking occurs all over the world, but the fact the British hacked another countrys telecommunications infrastructure should be alarming.

View post:
3 Of The Most Pervasive Internet Surveillance Programs Ran By GCHQ And The NSA - Patheos

If anyone has broken the law then the government has come down heavily on them, but the common man has seen action against lawbreakers, says the Uttar Pradesh CM

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath en route to completing five years at the helm of Indias most politically significant State speaks to Omar Rashid, Nistula Hebbar and Varghese K. George on his tenure and issues connected with it.

The challenges facing us were very clear and we tackled them one by one. Today, U.P. is among those States aspiring to reach high levels of development, otherwise one would only hear of riots, law and order problems, corruption, and the perception was such that no good person wanted to come here. There was no coordination between Centre and State over welfare programmes under previous governments especially after 2014. In 2014, the Swachch Bharat Mission was launched, in its first 2.5 years only 44 lakh toilets were built, in the next one and a half years we built 2.61 crore toilets. The result of this was that we found help to improve the conditions of the people, and in 38 janpads there was a dip in the incidence of encephalitis. Same is the case with the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana, in the last four years we have provided housing to 40 lakh people and money sent to peoples bank accounts, and appointing nodal officers to oversee construction. There were 1,24,000 villages in U.P. which didnt have any electricity connections and we provided connections there.

First of all, lets differentiate between all the things you have just said. State police have taken steps according to the law in order to establish order. The Deputy Superintendent of Police who died in Kanpur, was he not a Brahmin? The other policemen in that team in Kanpur who were killed, do they not have children who grieve for their fathers? Justice has to be equal for all and we cannot look at it in the prism of caste, community. The gaze of justice should be the same for all. When we are in government, we must be ready to do justice for the law abiding citizen. We havent invoked NSA (National Security Act) in wrong cases, and we have provided the basis for why we have invoked NSA in certain cases, both in the courts and in the advisory boards. In most cases these have been validated.

Every person has the right to go to court, I cannot stop them. The thinking behind these Acts, however, has been justified, that there should be rule of law and every citizen respects the law is important. This was the main thinking. In the name of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) when there was a conspiracy to riot in the State, we had to bring the ordinance on property damage and take action. It is nobodys fundamental right to destroy public property. If they do so, then the State has the right to bring in a law to provide for restitution of that damage through claim over property.

Our work is to govern and provide welfare goods to everyone without any discrimination and to get everyone treated equally before the law. But yes, if anyone has broken the law then the government has come down heavily on them, but the common man has seen action against lawbreakers. Under the gangsters Act we have confiscated property up to 1,600 crores of big mafia members. This is necessary to rein in those who think they can break the law with impunity.

There are some things that are attached to tradition which were there in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) rule as well. Under the Hindu traditions there are three ways of performing piacular rites one is ground burial, cremation or water burial. There is a particular time frame where agni sanskar cannot take place so people go for water burials or burials on the banks of the Ganga. After the implementation of the Namami Gangey programme, we had tried to stop these water burials, and tried to spread awareness. During the second wave, attempts were made to restart these burials in the sand and water and as we were alerted we stopped them. You must recall, in Balrampur district, someone associated with the SP or Congress, took the body of his relative who had passed away in Balrampur hospital and he threw the relatives body from a bridge into the river. We filed an FIR, and arrested the man. These things have happened in the past, in 2011-12, within a certain time frame when cremations dont take place.

One should not exaggerate something unless they have authentic information. From day 1, I have been involved with the COVID-19 management. During the first wave, when there was a lockdown, questions were raised on the lockdown. During the lockdown, our youngsters were stranded in Kota, workers from U.P. were stranded across the country. We sent buses and took them home safely. Fingers were pointed at us, that we should not do this. And had we not done it, even then they would say dekhiye sahab, the social system is like this, you get fingers pointed at you if you do and even if you don't. Due to the timely steps taken by the Indian government, India delivered better results in comparison to other countries.

We need to consider that we are dealing with a pandemic of this century. This is not an ordinary flu. And whenever an epidemic comes, then all types of resources prove scarce. On a normal day, in a 500-bed hospital, the persons getting oxygen would be barely 10-12. Two-four people would be on ventilators. In the second wave, the virus infection spread rapidly. The infection was so sudden... and during that period a situation of panic was created, that those who did not require it even they ran to the hospital. In many places, people reserved beds for themselves in hospitals. They made their staff occupy the beds, while the needy did not get a bed. And during COVID not everyone can go inside a hospital. All this was seen then. Those people who created panic are no less responsible...

When you create a panic situation among the public, and the public starts making noise, these people (MLAs) are under compulsion to speak in the same tone. They were just a few. Not more than two-three. You must remember, in a population of 24 crore, with 700 metric tonnes oxygen, we had brought the entire system under control. We made all attempts to prevent problems. Patients from one half of Delhi were in the hospitals here (U.P.). We still treated them. The oxygen of U.P. in GB Nagar and Ghaziabad was diverted to Delhi on direction of Delhi High Court. Even then we did not deny them. The Central government provided us oxygen from other places.

And about hiding the reporting (of deaths), that is absolutely wrong. U.P. has done four lakh tests per day. We have the maximum tests even today when COVID positivity rate is 0.015%. We are at the minimum stage. Even then we are conducting 2.5 lakh tests daily.

Thirdly, I conducted a survey and found that only 32% villages had some symptoms of COVID while the remaining 68% villages did not have any symptoms. Then people said many died. And you will be surprised that in U.P. with a population of 24 crore even one death is tragic there were 244 such children who lost both their parents from March 2020 to July 2021. This included children whose one parent died five-six years ago but the other one died during COVID-19. Some families had two-three kids.

Only 4,000 kids were orphaned in entire U.P. due to both COVID-19 and non-COVID deaths. U.P. had total deaths of 22,700. The data matches that, right? There is nothing to hide. There must have been a death somewhere? Someone's father or brother would have died. All this will come up. You cannot hide data of deaths. If you have conducted a test, you would also get a result. And the data is linked to the national portal. Nobody can fudge data in that. All those saying this don't have information about the ground reality.

Its not a question of risk, Im the Chief Minister of the whole State and it cannot be only attached to my personal ambition, so if Noida and Bijnore are considered a jinx, it cannot come in the way of my work. We won Lok Sabha after that and several other polls. Im a man who believes in God, but not superstition or orthodoxy. I pray, visit temples, follow the traditions of my order, and I reject the idea of any heaven that may accrue due to following superstitions. I want to achieve rewards through my karma.

No I was not. We met over issues related to the State. I met him earlier too and frequently seek his advice on governance issues.

Since when is the BSP a champion of Brahmin samaj? Their old slogans reflect their attitudes. Neither SP or BSP have the right to speak about social cohesion as they have advocated conflict between communities. They are trying to hunt for their lost social base which has come to the BJP.

It is not just temples. Under the Chief Minister Tourism Promotion Scheme, funds go to whichever religious site or tourist spot the legislator has proposed, be it of any religion. If an MLA has proposed a dargah, then funds would have gone even there. But because now even SP people are giving priority to mandirs instead of a dargah or a mosque, mostly temples have been proposed.

The kind of work done by the Central government led by Modiji in the last seven years for farmers has not been done after Independence. Be it the PM Fasal Beema Yojana, PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana or the real benefit of MSP, where farmers get 1.5 times of their cost, PM Modiji did this. Modiji gave PM Kisan Samman Nidhi to every farmer without discrimination. Before 2017, there was no procurement in U.P. It was started after 2017 by us.

It is dishonesty if government announces MSP but does not make procurement. From 2007-2017, sugarcane had received payment of only 95,000 crore. After our government came, in the last 4.5 years, we have made payments of 1.40 lakh crore. We are reviving defunct sugar mills. During COVID, all our sugarcane mills were functional. We started irrigation projects pending for years. If this kisan andolan was connected to the interest of farmers, then possibly they could have had the support. This is politically motivated. And any such politically motivated campaign will not receive support of people and annadata kisan.

No one will support. The recent panchayat elections have proven that. Barring Baghpat, the BJP won all seats in west U.P.

If we had misused, then in Etawah, the MP and MLA are ours, but the zilla panchayat head was made from SP. In Ballia, too, where we have five MLAs and two Ministers, we could not get our zilla panchayat chairperson post. If there was a misuse it would be here, no? When we win, they say it is due to ill acts. And when they win it is their heroism and achievements? How can this work?

There will be. But right now it is in the public domain for public comment. The population policy and Act are different things.

We never said it should be held. Till the last moment we said in the Supreme Court that we are against stopping it forcefully. Even before the SC took suo motu cognisance of it, I had held a videoconference with all Districts Magistrates and SPs to talk to Kanwar Sanghs and get a proposal from them that if they cancel their Kanwar Yatras it would be better. Last year, the Kanwar Sanghs on my proposal had even cancelled the yatra. We didn't stop anyone. Even today we didn't put any ban. But Kanwar Sanghs wrote to us and that's what we produced in SC that what we want to say is that this is not an issue of the government but a matter of faith. Let society decide instead of a duel or tension after preparing it.

The first part of my personality is dharm. Dharm for me is not worship and rituals but also a duty, which inspires me to work in the the interest of the country and society. I consider puja paddhatti a matter of personal faith. You don't have the right to interfere in my faith. And nor do I have the right to interfere in your personal faith. But my dharm makes me persistent towards my national duty.

View post:
We havent invoked the National Security Act in wrong cases, says Yogi Adityanath - The Hindu

Alan Suderman| The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

Thats it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is turning a device off then back on again can thwart hackers from stealing some information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones wont stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agencys cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a best practices guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

Id say probably once a week, whenever I think of it, he said.

Almost always in arms reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

I always think of phones as like our digital soul, said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

Gaining access: The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests its significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone reflects, in part, a change in how top hackers are gaining access to mobile devices and the rise of so-called zero-click exploits that work without any user interaction instead of trying to get users to open something thats secretly infected.

Theres been this evolution away from having a target click on a dodgy link, said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an internet civil rights watchdog at the University of Toronto.

Typically, once hackers gain access to a device or network, they look for ways to persist in the system by installing malicious software to a computers root file system. But thats become more difficult as phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google have strong security to block malware from core operating systems, Ziring said.

Its very difficult for an attacker to burrow into that layer in order to gain persistence, he said.

That encourages hackers to opt for in-memory payloads that are harder to detect and trace back to whoever sent them. Such hacks cant survive a reboot, but often dont need to since many people rarely turn their phones off.

Still some risk: A robust market currently exists for hacking tools that can break into phones. Some companies like Zerodium and Crowdfence publicly offer millions of dollars for zero-click exploits.

And hacker-for-hire companies that sell mobile-device hacking services to governments and law enforcement agencies have proliferated in recent years. The most well known is the Israeli-based NSO Group, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists and even members of the Catholic clergy.

NSO Group is the focus of the recent exposs by a media consortium that reported the companys spyware tool Pegasus was used in 37 instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others, according to The Washington Post.The company is also being sued in the U.S. by Facebook for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with a zero-click exploit.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to vetted government agencies for use against terrorists and major criminals. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The persistence of NSOs spyware used to be a selling point of the company. Several years ago its U.S.-based subsidy pitched law enforcement agencies a phone hacking tool that would survive even a factory reset of a phone, according to documents obtained by Vice News.

But Marczak, who has tracked NSO Groups activists closely for years, said it looks like the company first starting using zero-click exploits that forgo persistence around 2019.

Marczak said victims in the

WhatsApp case would see an incoming call for a few rings before the spyware was installed. In 2020, Marczak and Citizen Lab exposed another zero-click hack attributed to NSO Group that targeted several journalists at Al Jazeera. In that case, the hackers used Apples iMessage texting service.

There was nothing that any of the targets reported seeing on their screen. So that one was both completely invisible as well as not requiring any user interaction, Marczak said.

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, Marczak said rebooting your phone wont do much to stop determined hackers. Once you reboot, they could simply send another zero-click.

Its sort of just a different model, its persistence through reinfection, he said.

The NSAs guide also acknowledges that rebooting a phone works only sometimes.

The agencys guide for mobile devices has an even simpler piece of advice to really make sure hackers arent secretly turning on your phones camera or microphone to record you: dont carry it with you.

Read more:
Simple action can thwart top phone hackers - York Dispatch