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The United States division of Samsung has been charged with deceiving the US government into believing that several of its products met the necessary US government policies, resulting in the US government buying unauthorised Chinese-made electronics . The South Korean electronics giant has agreed to pay the Government $2.3 million in fines to settle the charges of violating trade agreements, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Under federal contracting rules, Government agencies are only required to purchase products made in the United States or in countries that have a trade agreement with the United States. Federal agencies purchased products from Samsung through authorised resellers, believing they were manufactured in South Korea or Mexico, comply with government procurement rules — namely the US trade agreement act. SAMSUNG LIED TO U.S GOVERNMENT Despite complying with the terms of the contract, Samsung was found to have breached the US government bet...

Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab has taken the United States government to a U.S. federal court for its decision to ban the use of Kaspersky products in federal agencies and departments. In September 2017, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a Binding Operational Directive (BOD) ordering civilian government agencies to remove Kaspersky Lab software from their computers and networks within 90 days. The order came amid mounting concern among United States officials that the Kaspersky antivirus software could be helping Russian government spy on their activities, which may threaten the U.S. national security. U.S. President Donald Trump also signed into law last week legislation that bans the use of Kaspersky products within the U.S. government, capping a months-long effort to purge Kaspersky from federal agencies amid concerns it's vulnerable to Kremlin influence. The Kaspersky's appeal is part of an ongoing campaign by the c...

Hackers rushed to defend WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank, and others who acted against the site and its jailed founder, Julian Assange. Internet "hacktivists" under the banner "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility in a Twitter message for causing severe technological problems on MasterCard's website. MasterCard had recently severed ties with WikiLeaks. Although MasterCard acknowledged a disruption in its Secure Code system for verifying online payments, spokesman James Issokson assured that consumers could still use their credit cards securely. Later on Wednesday, Visa's website also became inaccessible. These online attacks are part of a broader wave of support for WikiLeaks sweeping the Internet. Twitter was flooded with messages of solidarity for the group, while its Facebook page reached 1 million fans. However, late Wednesday, Operation Payback itself faced difficulties as many of i...

SOPA in US and Censorship in India : A cocktail to destroy Internet Freedom ! As US senators mull over the SOPA(Stopping Online Piracy Act) and PIPA(Protecting Intellectual Property Act) bills, the world stands witness to a historic moment. Almost all big IT companies like Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Mozilla, Godaddy, etc are speaking in one unanimous voice against SOPA and Internet Censorship. The draconian provisions of SOPA/PIPA are bound to create the deathbed of internet freedom and free speech, and if a careful reading of the proposed legislation is done, one realizes that it is likely to have the same impact on India. In the disguise of protecting copyrights and stopping piracy its completely clear that the US government is trying to assert its control over the free flow of information on internet which is some time uncomfortable to them. Giving power to Attorney General to direct search engines like Google to filter particular search results, or asking an ISP to manipulat...

90,000 Military Email Accounts Leaked in Latest #AntiSec Attack In latest tweet by AnonymousIRC , Hackers leaks  90,000 Military Email Accounts from Booz Allen Hamilton is a massive American consulting firm for #AntiSec. Anonymous call it " Military Meltdown Monday: Mangling Booz Allen Hamilton " . The Leak include 90,000 logins of military personnel—including personnel from US CENTCOM, SOCOM, the Marine Corps, various Air Force facilities, Homeland Security, State Department staff, and what looks like private sector contractors. They Release it via Torrent of 130.5 MB archive file. Press Release by Anonymous is : Hello Thar! Today we want to turn our attention to Booz Allen Hamilton, whose core business  is contractual work completed on behalf of the US federal government, foremost  on defense and homeland security matters, and limited engagements of foreign  governments specific to U.S. military assistance programs. So in this li...

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday  signed an executive order  that restricts the use of commercial spyware by federal government agencies. The order said the spyware ecosystem "poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person." It also seeks to ensure that the government's use of such tools is done in a manner that's "consistent with respect for the rule of law, human rights, and democratic norms and values." To that end, the order lays out the various criteria under which commercial spyware could be disqualified for use by U.S. government agencies. They include - The purchase of commercial spyware by a foreign government or person to target the U.S. government, A commercial spyware vendor that uses or discloses sensitive data obtained from the cyber surveillance tool without authorization and operates under the control of a foreign g...

Yahoo! has broke its silence and explained why it handed over its users' data to United States federal officials, thereby promising to expose those court documents which ordered the snooping. The US government threatened Internet giant with a $250,000 fine per day several years ago if it failed to comply with National Security Agency 's notorious PRISM Surveillance program, according to unclassified court documents released by Yahoo! on Thursday. " The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US Government's surveillance efforts ," the company's general counsel Ron Bell said on Yahoo's Tumblr page . " At one point, the US Government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply. " The documents released by Yahoo! shed new lights on the NSA's secret surveillance program PRISM, which was previously leaked from the agency's confidential documents provided by Global su...

The National Security Agency , part of the U.S. military reportedly has a direct line into the systems of some of the world's biggest Web and tech companies, i.e Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Skype. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM , 6-year-old program which allows officials to collect real-time information and as well as stored material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, according to reports in the Washington Post . Project PRISM may be the first of its kind and also  GCHQ , Britain's equivalent of the NSA, also has been secretly gathering intelligence from the same internet companies through an operation set up by the NSA. Later confirmed by the White House and members of Congress as saying that the government routinely seeks information in its fight to thwart domestic and international terrorism. Other services that are reportedly part of PRISM include PalTa...

The recent exposes and revelations by Edward Snowden about the Top Secret Internet Snooping program currently run by US National Security Agency (NSA) have shocked the world. The extent of snooping is even more shocking and what has just stunned the world is the sheer name of top Internet companies who had shared data of all their users and not to forget except Microsoft, all of them namely Google, Facebook, and Apple have longed established themselves as the outright defenders of free speech and Right to Privacy . Many of them are funders and donors of Electronic frontier foundation in US. The recently formed renowned organization defending right to privacy and free speech on Internet . Though much is being written about the extent of snooping, leaked Memos, Obama's Admissions, NSA's careful acceptance of the snooping Program but What bothers me is the stand of Indian Government in this mess. We are reportedly 5th most spied country by US NSA under this program and ...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used by a pro-Russian propaganda operation called Doppelganger as part of a sweeping set of actions. Accusing the Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaign of violating U.S. money laundering and criminal trademark laws, the agency called out companies Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura), and ANO Dialog for working at the behest of the Russian Presidential Administration. The goal, it said , is to "covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election." Among the methods Doppelganger used to drive viewership to the cybersquatted media domains encompassed the deployment of "influencers" worldwide, paid social media ads, a...

In the most surprising manner, the Chinese government said it arrested criminal hackers behind the massive cyber attack on US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier this year, dismissing its involvement. Three months back, we reported that China arrested a handful of hackers within its borders who were suspected of allegedly stealing commercial secrets from US companies. The arrests took place shortly before China President Xi Jinping visited the United States in September 2015 when both heads of states agreed that neither side will participate in commercial espionage against one another. China: Cyber Criminals Hacked OPM, Not Government Spies Now, those suspected hackers have turned out to be the ones in connection with the OPM hack that resulted in the theft of personal details of more than 21 Million United States federal employees, including 5.6 Million federal employees' fingerprints . Citing an " investigation ", the Chinese governme...