NATO, US ARMY WEB SITES ATTACKED BY HACKERS

Hackers have taken down two high-profile targets as they continue their ongoing Web attacks in support of Palestine, defacing Web sites run by the U>S> Army
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The attacks on Thursday took down the Web sites for The United States Army Military District of Washington and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, according to Zone-H, a Web site that tracks defacement activity.
The NATO site is now back online, but the U.S. Army site was still offline Friday morning. A version of the Web page cached by Google reads: "Stop attacks u israel and usa ! you cursed nations ! one day muslims will clean the world from you ! "(Defacement images shown above) NATO didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Most other U.S. Army sites do not appear to have been affected by that attack. The U.S. Army Military District of Washington is an army command, based in Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C.
Using what's known as a SQL injection attack, the group also defaced the Web site of the Joint Force Headquarters of the National Capital Region, which handles military incident response for the Washington, D.C., area, according to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A U.S. Army spokeswoman was unable to immediately comment on reports of the hacks.
All of these attacks are credited to a Turkish hacking group called Agd_Scorp / Peace Crew.
This group has claimed many Web hacks over the past few months, including Microsoft's Web sites in Canada, Ireland and China; Shell; Harvard University; and the U.S. National Basketball Association, Warner said in a blog posting.
"Although the group is now calling themselves 'Peace Crew,' the same membership was calling itself 'Terrorist Crew' as recently as December," Warner wrote.
As tensions in Gaza have intensified over the past few weeks, loosely organized hacking groups from countries such as Morocco, Turkey and Iran have defaced thousands of Web pages. This latest wave of attacks has mostly focused on Israeli sites, particularly easy targets belonging to individuals or small businesses. However, some high-profile targets have been hit too, such as news site Ynetnews.com.

MUMBAI SIEGE TERRORISTS USED GOOGLE EARTH

The terrorists that attacked various locations in south Mumbai last week used digital maps from Google Earth to learn their way around, according to officials investigating the attacks.
Investigations by the Mumbai police, including the interrogation of one nabbed terrorist, suggest that the terrorists were highly trained and used technologies such as satellite phones, and global positioning systems (GPS), according to police.
Google Earth has previously come in for criticism in India, including from the country's former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Kalam warned in a 2005 lecture that the easy availability online of detailed maps of countries from services such as Google Earth could be misused by terrorists.
A Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail Monday that Google Earth's imagery is already available through commercial and public sources. Google Earth has also been used by aid agencies for relief operations, which outweighs abusive uses, she said.
Indian security agencies have complained that Google Earth exposed Indian defense and other sensitive installations. Other nations, including China, have made similar complaints regarding military locations.
However the places attacked by terrorists last week did not come under the category of defense or sensitive installations. The information available to the terrorists on Google Earth about the locations they attacked is also available on printed tourism maps of Mumbai. The locations included two hotels, a restaurant, a residential complex and a railway station.
John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

HOW HACKER IMPERSONATED PALIN, STOLE E-MAIL PASSWORD

WASHINGTON - Details emerged Thursday behind the break-in of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail account, including a first-hand account suggesting it was vulnerable because a hacker was able to impersonate her online to obtain her password.
The hacker guessed that Alaska's governor had met her husband in high school, and knew Palin's date of birth and home Zip code. Using those details, the hacker tricked Yahoo Inc.'s service into assigning a new password, "popcorn," for Palin's e-mail account, according to a chronology of the crime published on the Web site where the hacking was first revealed.
The FBI and Secret Service launched a formal investigation Wednesday. Yahoo declined to comment Thursday on details of the investigation, citing Palin's privacy and the sensitivity of such investigations.
The person who claimed responsibility for the break-in did not respond Thursday to an e-mail inquiry from The Associated Press.
"i am the lurker who did it, and i would like to tell the story," the person wrote in the account, which circulated on the Internet. What started as a prank was cut short because of panic over the possibility the FBI might investigate, the hacker wrote.
Investigators were waiting to speak with Gabriel Ramuglia of Athens, Ga., who operates an Internet anonymity service used by the hacker. Ramuglia told the AP on Thursday he was reviewing his own logs and promised to turn over any helpful information to authorities because the hacker violated rules against using the anonymity service for illegal activities.
"If you're doing something illegal and causing me issues by doing this, I'm willing to cooperate," Ramuglia said. "Obviously this is the most high profile situation I've dealt with."
The break-in of Palin's private account is especially significant because Palin sometimes uses non-government e-mail to conduct state business. Previously disclosed e-mails indicate her administration embraced Yahoo accounts as an alternative to government e-mail, which could possibly be released to the public under Alaska's Open Records Act.
At the time, critics of Palin's administration were poring over official e-mails they had obtained from the governor's office looking for evidence of improper political activity.
Details of this week's break-in, if authentic, were consistent with speculation by computer security experts who said Yahoo's "forgot-my-password" service almost certainly was exploited. The mechanism allows customers to retrieve or change their password if they can verify their identity by confirming personal information such as birthdate, zip code and the answer to a "secret question," such as a childhood pet's name or school mascot.
Palin's hacker was challenged to guess where Alaska's governor met her husband, Todd. Palin herself recounted in her speech at the Republican National Convention that the pair began dating two decades ago in high school in Wasilla, a town near Anchorage.
"I found out later though (sic) more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on 'Wasilla high'," the person wrote.
The McCain campaign issued a statement describing the hacking as an invasion of Palin's privacy.
By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

GEORGIAN REFUGEES BRING TALES OF ATROCITIES

Georgian women refugees sit on a straw-laden farm transporter as they rest before continuing their flight from Russian troops.

GULFNEWS.COM
By Tom Clifford, Deputy Managing Editor
Published: August 15, 2008, 09:21

Gori: One town, two countries. The contradictions of war were clearly apparent in Sarp, a town shared by Turkey and Georgia.

On one side were streams of refugees fleeing the fighting and on the other side of the town in Georgia itself people were sunning themselves on the beach, as if oblivious to the suffering of their own countrymen.

Sarp is where the Turkish Red Crescent are based to deal with the refugee influx.

More than 3,600 Georgians dash to Sarp each day, mostly from Western Georgia. They bring tales of atrocities and heavy fighting.

Meanwhile, the Black Sea port of Poti, about 100 kilometres north, has been shelled by Russian warships and - according to refugees - resembles a ghost town.

"I brought my wife and nine-year-old son from Poti today," said Qabakh.

"It is not safe there. The Russians may have withdrawn their heavy armour but irregulars crowd around the town, robbing and looting," he said.

On the Turkish side of Sarp stands a convoy of 104 articulated trucks caught in the no man's land of war during a ceasefire.

Among them are Turkish Red Crescent trucks with huge banners down the side stating that their contents are a gift from the Turkish people to Georgia.

For the people of Georgia, the French president's announcement of a ceasefire just does not ring true.

The refugees' tales are a harrowing testament that Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement was a triumph of spin over substance.

The front line in this campaign is not in Tbilisi but in Western Georgia where the remnants of the routed Georgian army have taken to the hills and where Georgians blame Chechen irregulars for atrocities which are too well documented to be just propaganda.

Georgia is being slowly strangled and a vicious Bosnian style conflict is emerging.

The area between Poti and Gori is becoming a no man's land where the gun carries the day and undisciplined bands of young men, many from Chechnya, roam.