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JAY-Z DELENDA EST.

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From "The Real Fat Cats" by Victor Davis Hanson, December 13, 2012:

Who exactly were the rich who, as the president said, were not “paying their fair share”? The rapper Jay-Z (net worth: nearly $500 million)? The actor Johnny Depp (2011 income: $50 million)? Neither seems to have heard the president’s earlier warning that “at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

From "Conservative Populism" by Victor Davis Hanson, December 18, 2012:

The truth is that everyone from the college president who gets his taxes paid by his university to Jay-Z is a beneficiary of Republican advocacies that he damns.

From "The New Affirmative Action" by Victor Davis Hanson, March 14, 2013:

Will the children of multimillionaire Tiger Woods — or of Jay-Z and Beyoncé — qualify for special consideration on the theory that their racial pedigrees or statistical underrepresentation in some fields will make their lives more challenging than the lives of poor white children in rural Pennsylvania or second-generation Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Mich.?

From "The War against the Young" by Victor Davis Hanson, April 9, 2013:

The administration seems aware of the potential paradoxes in this reverse “What’s the matter with Kansas?” syndrome of young people voting against their economic interests. Thus follows the constant courting of the hip and cool Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Lena Dunham, Occupy Wall Streeters, and others who blend pop culture, sex, youth, energy, and fad...

From "Our Postmodern Angst," by Victor Davis Hanson, August 13, 2013:

Today, obesity, not malnutrition, is America’s epidemic. Our youth’s education is hindered by too many cell phones, not access to too few books. Misogynistic and obscene lyrics may have enriched Jay-Z, but they reflect the sort of values that lead millions to remain in poverty, rather than becoming disciplined cadres organizing for social justice.

From "An American Satyricon," by Victor Davis Hanson, August 27, 2013:

Civil rights once meant an existential struggle between the oppressed and villains like Bull Connor with his dogs and fire hoses. Now Oprah is miffed over being treating rudely while eyeing a $38,000 purse in Switzerland... near-billionaire rapper Jay-Z warns that the have-nots may riot...

From "Miley Cyrus and Ugly Sex" by Victor Davis Hanson, September 3, 2013:

Where is the elemental inspiration, the existential need to tap popular anguish and turn it into revolutionary artistic expression?
If multimillionaire rapper Jay-Z performs at the White House, where is to be found the font of resistance? In short — resistance to what?

From "Medieval Liberals" by Victor Davis Hanson, October 8, 2013:

As recompense, [the Medieval Liberal] is not just liberal, but liberally hip and cool... in his 50s he listens to Jay-Z and Beyoncé as well as Springsteen and the Dead.

From "Progressive Insurance" by Victor Davis Hanson, April 15, 2014:

Certainly racial venom is not a career ender for the fully insured. Jay-Z, a frequent White House guest, is not shy about wearing a Five-Percent Nation medallion, which reflects an ideology that considers whites inferior devils...

From "The End of Affirmative Action" by Victor Davis Hanson, May 1, 2014:

Class divisions are mostly ignored in admissions and hiring criteria, but in today’s diverse society, they often pose greater obstacles than race. The children of one-percenters such as Beyoncé and Jay-Z will have doors opened to them that are not open to those in Pennsylvania who, according to President Obama, “cling to guns or religion.”

From "Egalitarian Grandees" by Victor Davis Hanson, May 27, 2014:

Being liberal in the abstract also provides psychological penance for enjoying the good life in the concrete. A Johnny Depp or a Jay-Z is cool and therefore free to enjoy compensation based entirely on what the free market will bear.

I feel bad for the kids, who have this instead of Biggie and Tupac.

UPDATE. In comments (always worth visiting! No trip to alicublog is complete without the comments!) D Johnston observes, "Everything [VDH] writes about politics is just a random assortment of talking points, creaky old bugaboos and Mark Steyn-brand simulated humor, all tied together with the pseudo-scholarly pablum of a bright but seriously self-obsessed high school senior." Johnston does us the further favor of identifying the paragraph subjects in Hanson's latest column: "Para 1 - Elizabeth Warren, Al Gore; Para 2 - Michelle Obama; Para 3 - 'Silicon Valley to Chevy Chase'; Para 4 - Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz; Para 5 - The Steyer brothers and 'the media'..."

You get the idea. The basic Hanson is that rich liberals are hypocrites because all liberals are supposed to live in rags and filth like their best friends The Poor -- I think that was in Herodotus -- and because they made their money in the arts and sciences they are morally inferior to people who made their money buying property with oil under it (whom Hanson takes care to associate with hard-bitten sons of toil, usually by adjacent description).

Also, Hanson's most recent column actually contains a reference to Pajama Boy. Is this what they mean when they call Hanson a classicist?

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#Pinterest Starts #Bug Bounty Program

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Pinterest has become the latest major Web property to start a bug bounty program, joining the Bugcrowd platform and offering researchers rewards of up to…a shirt.

The site, which enables users to post photos, recipes and other information, announced the new reward program Tuesday. Company officials said that Pinterest was looking for more people to help find bugs in the various Web properties it operates. The company already works with external researchers and holds internal “fix-a-thons” to encourage employees to find bugs.

“Even with these precautions, bugs get into code. Over the years, we’ve worked with external researchers and security experts who’ve alerted us to bugs. Starting today, we’re formalizing a bug bounty program with Bugcrowd and updating our responsible disclosure, which means we can tap into the more than 9,000 security researchers on the Bugcrowd platform. We hope these updates will allow us to learn more from the security community and respond faster to Whitehats,” Paul Moreno, a security engineer at Pinterest, wrote in a blog post announcing the program.

The main pinterest.com domain is the target for the bug bounty program, but it includes a number of subdomains:

• api.pinterest.com
• www.pinterest.com
• about.pinterest.com
• business.pinterest.com
• blog.pinterest.com
• help.pinterest.com
• developers.pinterest.com
• engineering.pinterest.com

Moreno said that while a shirt and a mention in the company’s hall of fame are the only rewards available in the program right now, that may change in the future as the program matures and attracts more researchers.

“This is just the first step. As we gather feedback from the community, we have plans to turn the bug bounty into a paid program, so we can reward experts for their efforts with cash,” he said.

Bugcrowd is a platform that allows companies to run their bug bounty programs and expose them to a vetted group of security researchers and testers. Many large companies choose to run their bug bounties on their own, including Facebook, Microsoft, PayPal and others. But Bugcrowd allows organizations to hand off some of the details to a third party.

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Many #eBay Users No Longer Trust It After the #Database #Breach

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Almost half of eBay users have said they are less likely to use the service in the future following its recent database breach.

A poll conducted by Yougov has found that 49 percent of eBay users have lost trust in the service following its data loss, with some users having to wait over a week before they were notified of the hack.

What's more, the survey reveals that just 33 percent of eBay users have changed their passwords following the attack, although 52 percent of those who haven't said that they intend to in the future. The other 12 percent, clearly, just aren't too bothered by the breach.

That could be eBay's fault, however, as the firm sent some users warning emails only this week, despite the breach having been discovered the previous week.

Sent out over the weekend, the email is a message from the firm's president Devin Wenig, who asked users to change their passwords as soon as possible.

"To help ensure customers' trust and security on eBay, I am asking all eBay users to change their passwords," the email read.

He explained that this is because of eBay's recent discovery of a cyberattack on its corporate information network, which compromised a database containing eBay user passwords.

"What's important for you to know: We have no evidence that your financial information was accessed or compromised. And your password was encrypted," the email continued.

On Friday, eBay made it easier for users to reset their passwords amid pressure from users complaining of the complex process involved in changing their credentials following a huge data leak, which came first came to light earlier this week.

The website's homepage featured a large banner at the top centre which urges users to reset their passwords, shown below. However, these messages have now disappeared.

Since the incident was revealed, eBay has been criticised for failing to notify all its customers in a timely fashion and for the confusing process customers have to go through to change their password. However, now it is much easier for users to update their details, with a new "Reset Password" button on the homepage and improved navigation with links on the statement, which pops up when a user's clicks "learn more" on the homepage (below).

News came to light on Thursday that stolen databases claiming to contain personal information of eBay users have made their way online for a pretty sum of 1.45 Bitcoin, or about £450, following the revelation on Wednesday that the auction website had been hacked and login credentials had been stolen.

The hacking came to light when eBay urged its users to change their passwords, admitting to attacks on one of its databases.

The cyber attacks didn't happen recently, though. eBay said that a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data was stolen between late February and early March.

The stolen database appeared on anonymous text file site Pastebin on Thursdayevening, comprising a "full eBay user database dump with 145,312,663 unique records".

However, eBay denied that the Pastebin database was legitimate. Security companies are also keen to point out that it could simply be an attempt by cyber crooks to cash in on the debacle.

Rapid7 global security strategist, Trey Ford, said, "It's not uncommon" for criminals to spot an opportunity in such an attack by offering false credentials for sale.

"This happened with the Livingsocial breach too," he said. "In our initial analysis of the 12,663 credentials offered as a sample of the larger database, we found matches between email addresses and a popular Malaysian web forum, which may point to the true source of these credentials."

"We have no way to confirm how statistically representative the leaked APAC sample is of the broader dataset, or whether this site is the true source."

Despite admitting to the hack, the auction website said there was no evidence of suspicious activity on members' accounts, but still advised users to change their passwords as a precaution.

"After conducting extensive tests on its networks, the company said it has no evidence of the compromise resulting in unauthorised activity for eBay users, and no evidence of any unauthorised access to financial or credit card information, which is stored separately in encrypted formats," the firm said in a statement, talking about itself in third person, perhaps to help distance itself from the problem.

"However, changing passwords is a best practice and will help enhance security for eBay users."

Ebay said it regrets any inconvenience or concern that this password reset might cause its customers, all 128 million of them.

The database included eBay customers' name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth, eBay said, but didn't contain financial information or other confidential personal information.

"The compromised employee log-in credentials were first detected about two weeks ago. Extensive forensics subsequently identified the compromised eBay database, resulting in the company's announcement today," the firm added.

All eBay users will be notified via email beginning later today to change their passwords.

"In addition to asking users to change their eBay password, [we are] also encouraging any eBay user who utilised the same password on other sites to change those passwords, too. The same password should never be used across multiple sites or accounts."

Speaking rather angrily in a blog post reacting to the news, Trend Micro VP of security research Rik Ferguson asked eBay several questions about how it could let this happen.

He said, "Effective security is no longer about designing architecture with the aim of keeping the attacker out permanently, that's a pipe dream. If they want to get in, they will get in. Effective security is about accepting the reality of compromise, putting systems and processes in place that mean you discover and react in a timely fashion and crucially that you will make it extremely difficult for the attacker to leave with what they came for. How did you score?"

"You write at the end of [Ebay's] press statement: 'The same password should never be used across multiple sites or accounts.' I agree. I'm going to end my 'statement' with this. Sensitive data especially that which you hold in trust, should always be encrypted, no exceptions."

Malwarebytes also commented on the breach. Chris Boyd, malware intelligence analyst at the firm told, "The company says that access to corporate servers was gained when a small number of employees were compromised. Whilst it’s impossible to say for sure until more detail emerges, this could be achieved as the result of a targeted ‘watering hole’ compromise or someone falling victim to spear phishing or a another form of social engineering.

"These types of attacks aim to get inside pre-identified targets such as companies and other high-value institutions."

"It's important that people listen to eBay and, when notified by email, change their password, as well as updating any other site which uses the same log-in credentials."

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#LulzSec #hacker 'Sabu' released after 'work' for #FBI

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Hector Monsegur spent the last three years as a model law enforcement informant, quietly drawing out his fellow hackers and directly aiding in the arrest of members of the LulzSec hacking crew and Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond. His hard work was rewarded Tuesday, when a judge sentenced him to time served and released him.

Judge Loretta Preska determined that the seven months Monsegur, known by his hacker handle “Sabu,” spent in pre-trial detention was sufficient punishment for one of the most active hackers in the Anonymous collective and the vocal leader of the splinter group Lulzsec. Monsegur will be subjected to one year of supervised release that will include monitoring of his computer use, and he may yet be forced to pay restitution to the victims of his hacking.

The lenient sentence was the result, Preska said, of the “truly extraordinary” help Monsegur gave law enforcement since June, 2011. He spent more than three years as a well-connected mole within Anonymous during a period when it was rampaging through hundreds of hacking targets. She particularly praised Monsegur’s decision in 2011 to immediately begin aiding the FBI in tracking his friends, as a delay might have given Lulzsec and other Anonymous hackers time to destroy evidence.

“The immediacy of Mr. Monsegur’s cooperation and its around-the-clock nature was particularly helpful to the government,” she said. “That personal characteristic of turning on a dime to doing good, not evil, is the most important factor in this sentencing.”

Monsegur, a hulking man with a close-trimmed beard and hair, appeared in court wearing a billowing black shirt, and told the court he is no longer the Sabu who had brazenly led Lulzsec on dozens of hacking campaigns and spouted revolutionary rhetoric from a highly active Twitter feed. “Over the last three years I’ve gone through a lot of changes and learned a lot of lessons,” he said in a short statement. “I’ve done a lot of soul searching… and I realized I hurt my family the most.

“I’m not the same person you saw here three years ago.”

The judge also considered the harassment and threats Monsegur and his family have faced since he was publicly identified as a federal informant in March, 2012. The publicity led to an assault on Monsegur’s brother and prompted his family’s decision to leave their New York home. “His family has been subject to threats, assaults, and all manner of danger,” said Preska. “For all these reasons, I find that Monsegur is entitled to a downward departure,” she added, using the legal jargon for a lighter-than-expected sentence.

In a motion (.pdf) filed over the weekend, prosecutors requested that Monsegur receive the minimum sentence in reward for his role as an “extremely valuable cooperator” with law enforcement agents. The motion stated that his work drawing out his fellow hackers in online chats and sharing their communications with the FBI helped federal authorities prosecute eight other Anonymous associates who currently face charges or have served prison sentences. Hammond was sentenced to ten years in prison last November—in the same courtroom and the same judge as the Monsegur sentencing—for his role in the hacking of the private intelligence firm Stratfor.

Monsegur’s sentence won’t end the controversy around the role he’s played on both sides of a three-year hacking saga. Questions still loom about why the FBI allowed Monsegur to continue aiding in and occasionally directing attacks–which caused millions of dollars in damage–on dozens of targets while he was under the agency’s control. During his sentencing in November, Hammond told the court Monsegur had relayed to him targets including foreign government sites. The information he stole from those sites often was passed to Monsegur. “I think the government’s use of this data needs to be investigated,” Hammond said in his sentencing statement.

In court Tuesday, however, Monsegur was instead praised as having warned authorities of security vulnerabilities he had learned about and helping get them fixed. The potential targets he was credited with helping to protect include the water supply of “a major American city” and the supply chain of a foreign energy firm. His defense attorney cited “more than 300 intrusions” he helped law enforcement prevent.

“The things you did were not so good,” Preska said to Monsegur in her final words in the hearing. But “you have done as much as any human can do” to make up for those actions, she added, “and I salute you for that.”

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EU Council's opinion on the Trade Secret Directive -- minimal harmonisation, greatest results?

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As the IPKat reported, on 28 November 2013, the EU Commission submitted to the Council and to the Parliament a Draft Directive on the protection of trade secrets (the ‘Commission Draft’). While the European Parliament has not started discussing it, yesterday the Council rendered its opinion on the draft directive (the ‘Council Draft’) [press release here; opinion here].

Although the main aims of the draft directive remain the same, the Council’s approach appears to be somewhat different from the EU Commission on a number of crucial points. Indeed, the Council pushed for a “minimal harmonisation”, suggesting that a wider degree of freedom should be left to Member States in the transposition of the Directive. Further, it took the position that Member States should be allowed to provide for a higher level of protection than that requested by the Directive, provided that the basic principles contained in it are safeguarded. As the brand new Art. 1(2) establishes:

“Member States may provide, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty, for more far-reaching protection against the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets than that required in this Directive, provided that compliance with Articles 4, 5, Article 6(1), Article 7, the second subpragraph of Article 8(1), Articles 8(3), 8(4), 9(2), Articles 10, 12 and Article 14(3) is ensured”.

The main amendments to the Commission Draft are a follows:

Trade secret violation objectivised -- an open door for CJEU’s further harmonisation of national unfair competition law?

While the definition of “trade secret” of Article 2 remains the same as the Commission’s proposal (which in turn reflects Art. 39 of TRIPs), one of the most sensible Council amendments concerns the scope of violation of a trade secret. In principle, both the Commission and the Council agree that trade secret holder should be able to prevent or obtain redress for “the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of their trade secret” (Art. 3). The two Drafts, however, do not share the same idea of what “unlawful” means.

In the Commission’s proposal, “intention” or at least “gross negligence” are necessary if the acquisition, use or disclosure of a trade secret is to be considered “unlawful” (Arts 3(2), 3(3), 3(4) and 3(5) of the Commission Draft). The Council, eliminating those subjective elements, simply proposed that “unlawful” meant any acquisition, use or disclosure “which, under the circumstances, is considered contrary to honest commercial practices” (Arts 3(2)(f), 3(3)(a) of the Council Draft).

Substituting intention to infringe and gross negligence with a general reference to commercial “honesty” could result in wider protection for trade secrets and an easier life for trade secret holders, who would no longer have to demonstrate an infringer’s subjective status in order to secure protection.

Moreover, national courts could benefit (and harmonisation could suffer) from a wider degree of freedom in defining what is “honest” and “lawful”. Although Articles 3 and 4 provide guidelines for this purposes, the Council stressed the importance of national law in this regard by including a new Article 4(1a):

“The acquisition, use and disclosure of trade secrets shall be considered lawful to the extent that such acquisition, use or disclosure is required or allowed by Union or national law”.

In the same perspective, national law could also be considered when assessing the “purpose of protecting a legitimate interest” according to which one could lawfully acquire, use or disclose trade secrets (Art. 2(e) of the Council Draft, which added the wording “legitimate interest … recognised by Union or national law” to the Commission’s draft).

If the Parliament approves the Council’s proposal, the concurrent contribution of Union and national law to the definition of what is commercially “honest” (and therefore “lawful”) could result in an increased influence of the Court of Justice of the European Union even beyond the field of trade secrets -- take, eg, a provision of national unfair competition law that is solely based on concept of commercial fairness, which the CJEU could have the chance to shape via national courts’ references on trade secret-related issues.

Enforcement and injunctions conditions -- a more flexible open list

No worries, just keep it secret

Finding it “necessary to provide the competent judicial authorities with more flexibility when assessing the need for the adoption of injunctions (whether definitive or provisional) and corrective measures”, the Council rephrased Articles 10(2) and 12(1) of the Commission Draft, which imposed a mandatory examination of some elements when “deciding on the granting or rejecting of the application and assessing its proportionality” or “considering a request for the adoption of the injunctions and corrective measures” (Art. 12(1)). These elements concerned the value of the trade secret, the impact of the unlawful use or disclosure of the trade secret, the legitimate interests of the parties, the legitimate interests of third parties, the public interest and the safeguard of fundamental rights, etc.

The Council Draft more generally requires the competent national judicial authorities “to take into account the specific circumstances of the case” (Art. 10(2)), while national Courts are free to consider the mandatory elements listed above only “where appropriate”.

No intention to harmonise criminal protection

The Council took care to specify that the Draft Directive will not in any way interfere with national prerogatives regarding criminal law. In this perspective, amended Recital 8 as follows:

“It is appropriate to provide for rules at Union level to approximate the national legislative systems so as to ensure a sufficient and consistent level of civil redress across the internal market…”

A “civil” was also added to Article 5, which now reads

“Member States shall provide for the measures, procedures and remedies necessary to ensure the availability of civil redress against unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure of trade secrets”.

Criminal sounding expressions like “theft” and “bribery”, used in the Commission draft to define circumstances in which the acquisition of trade secret is unlawful, disappeared in the Council Draft (Art. 3(2)(b) and (c) of the Commission Draft). Although not criminal-related, “deception” and “breach or inducement to breach a confidentiality agreement or any other duty to maintain secrecy” were also deleted from the same list (see Art. 3(2)(d) and (e) of the Commission Draft).

Special regime for employees’ liability for damages

Macao's secret beauty
is not trade

Another amendment of relevance is the one of Article 13(1) and concerns the dramatic relation between trade secrets and employees [which have occupied this Kat’s mind for the last weeks -- before, during, and after the IGIR/IEEM conferences in Macao and Hong Kong on the very same topic; a book addressing the issue of trade secret and employees in the jurisdictions represented at those conferences is being contemplated in order to de-classify that messy issue and bring clarity and happiness for all].

Seeing as employees’ pockets are not the deepest and that the boundaries of lawfulness when it comes to information that employees (or former employees) may acquire and use are not the most closely defined, the Council included a new paragraph to Article 13, aimed to allow Member States

“[i]n accordance with their national law and practice … to restrict the liability for damages of employees towards their employers for the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of a trade secret of the employer when they act without intent”.

Confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of proceedings

Article 8 of the Commission Draft provided a general obligation not to use or disclose trade secrets or alleged trade secrets disclosed in legal proceedings upon all those who obtained access or became aware of them as a result of participation to the same proceedings. In this regard, the Council struck a balance between legitimate secrecy expectations of the trade secret holder and the right of defence of other parties involved in possible proceedings, providing that a secrecy regime might only be established towards information that the competent authorities have “identified as confidential” further to “a duly reasoned application by the interested party” (Art. 8(1) of the Council Draft).

In the Council’s proposal it is for the trade secret holder to submit a reasoned claim for confidentiality regime upon specific information and to provide reasons supporting such request. The Courts would then examine such claim and provide accordingly, if reasons for establishing a secrecy regime exist.

Who is Merpel? The
IPKat's special secret

Once the secrecy regime is established, the Council specified, “the obligation [thereof] shall remain in force after the legal proceedings have ended”, unless such information becomes generally known within relevant professional circles or a final decision acknowledges that it does not meet the trade secret requirements provided by Article 2.

Extended limitation period for bringing infringement proceedings

Finally, Art. 7 of the Commission Draft provided that actions related to trade secret violation might have been brought “at least one year but not more than two years after the date on which the applicant became aware, or had reason to become aware, of the last fact giving rise to the action”. “That is too short!”, Council must have thought, so it chose to let Member States opt for a limitation period up to six years, leaving them free to define the moment from which such period starts running and possible reasons for its suspension (Art. 7 of the Council Draft).

The Council will now start negotiations with the EU Parliament [provided that an EU Parliament still exists after the last elections, sniffs Merpel], whose response should be available in a few months.

Nexus

JAY-Z DELENDA EST.

Remove Hot-finder.com Virus and Speed up the PC

#Pinterest Starts #Bug Bounty Program

Many #eBay Users No Longer Trust It After the #Database #Breach

Get Rid of Websearch.fastosearch.info Virus and Fix Redirects

#LulzSec #hacker 'Sabu' released after 'work' for #FBI

Wednesday whimsies

EU Council's opinion on the Trade Secret Directive -- minimal harmonisation, greatest results?

LulzSec hacker 'Sabu' Freed From Prison

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