Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category
Posted on December 20, 2011 - by Venik
Iran’s New Stealth UAV
In December of 2009 the USAF has officially confirmed the existence of a new stealth UAV – the Lockheed-Martin RQ-170. In the December 4 statement, the USAF said the new aircraft “aligns with Secretary of Defense Robert M Gates’ request for increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to the combatant commanders and Chief of Staff [...]
Posted on August 23, 2011 - by Venik
Ukraine’s Quicksand
I haven’t posted anything for a while now: been busy. It seems the subject I find hardest to avoid is the political circus in Ukraine. Maybe it’s because I am from there, or maybe it’s because I always liked circus. I guess, we’ll never know for sure. And so, Ukraine’s former Prime Minister and socialite [...]
Posted on February 14, 2011 - by Venik
Putin’s Palace
Ahead of the presidential election in Russia, the opposition is pooling resources for an early smear campaign. The usual targets are other opposition leaders, the Communists, and the Kremlin. But the all-time favorite is, of course, Vladimir Putin. Will he run for president? Nobody knows. Gorbachev doesn’t think Putin will run. Nemtsov is certain that [...]
Posted on February 3, 2011 - by Venik
Baltic Pirates – the Mystery Revealed
Some of you may still remember the strange hijacking on the Russian cargo vessel “Arctic Sea” in the Baltic in late July of 2009. The ship was boarded by masked men wearing police-like uniforms and armed with automatic weapons. The captain and the crew were forced to sail the ship to Africa. Inexplicably, the 4.4-ton [...]
Posted on February 3, 2011 - by Venik
Cézanne and Stem Cells
The New York Times ran an interesting story on an unlikely diplomatic dispute between the US and Russia over fine art and inter-museum exchange. Apparently in July of last year a federal judge in DC ruled that Russia was supposed to hand over a collection of books and religious documents to a sect of Hasidic [...]
Posted on January 28, 2011 - by Venik
FBI Rushes to VISA’s Defense
The FBI has announced that it executed 40 search warrants for suspected members of the Anonymous international hacktivist group known for its actions in of Wikileaks. Police in the UK has arrested five suspected members of the group. Anonymous is credited with the successful attacks against VISA and MasterCard payment systems late last year after [...]
Posted on January 26, 2011 - by Venik
Kodak Learns the Art of Patent Trolling
Just read in Bloomberg that Kodak is looking at a possible loss in its ITC patent infringement case against Apple and RIM. Kodak says that the low-resolution preview feature found in most digital cameras is infringing on a Kodak patent. The ITC judge said that patent should be invalidated, because the low-res preview technology is [...]
Posted on December 20, 2010 - by Venik
Conspiracy Theory
I am at work, filling my office with clouds of cigar smoke and reading Jim Goad’s “Julian Assange’s Honey Trap: That’s Rape in Sweden“, perhaps the most entertaining account to date of Assange’s Stockholm adventure. And a seemingly redundant question popped into my head: why exactly did Assange go to Sweden? I know, he went [...]
Posted on December 16, 2010 - by Venik
Sweden Wants Out
Swedish prosecutors investigating Julian Assange told reporters that they were not involved in the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to appeal an earlier decision by a judge at City of Westminster magistrates court granting Assange bail. “Karin Rosander, director of communications for Sweden’s prosecutor’s office, told the Guardian: “The decision was made by the British prosecutor. [...]
Posted on December 11, 2010 - by Venik
Nothing Odd
A couple of days ago Claes Borgström (thank God I am not Swedish), the lawyer representing Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén in the sex case against Julian Assange, decided to explain some of the more obvious discrepancies in his clients’ version of events. Normally, this is what a good lawyer would be expected to do [...]
Posted on December 9, 2010 - by Venik
WikiDefendors
Today Wikileaks and Julian Assange gained two new influential supporters: the UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay and her nemesis the Batman (aka Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin). Putin’s vocal support of Julian Assange comes a day after a member of Medvedev’s administration suggested Assange should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. “When asked [...]
Posted on December 9, 2010 - by Venik
Network attacks against PayPal are effective
PayPal is backpedaling and there is good reason for that. While PayPal’s financial services remained accessible throughout the day, their performance was well below average. Prolonged, intermittent degradation of service can lead to the same loss of revenue as a complete but relatively brief outage. An intermittent degradation of service is also easier to achieve and harder to troubleshoot than a full outage. While PayPal’s PR representative was not lying when he said that attacks failed to crash PayPal’s services, they did degrade them significantly and it is just as bad, or worse.
Posted on December 7, 2010 - by Venik
PayPal dumps Wikileaks
As you already know, PayPal stopped accepting charitable donations for Wikileaks. The Guardian reported that PayPal froze about eighty thousand dollars donated to Wikileaks via PayPal Donations service. So far PayPal has refused to release the funds, nor has it issued refunds to its customers who donated the money. I know this because I donated [...]
Posted on December 6, 2010 - by Venik
Low Hanging Fruit
The US government is pressuring Assange, his co-workers, Internet service providers, house pets, and even his lawyers. Ignoring the obvious illegality of this tactic, the more important question is: what exactly is the Department of State hoping to accomplish by harassing Wikileaks? The cat is out of the bag, the worms are out of the can. The entire collection of 250,000-some US embassy cables has already been widely distributed among leading newspapers and private citizens in various countries.
