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Covert channel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wrap-Up Magazine: NSA On Computers



the report said most of the software is inserted into individual computers by gaining access through computer networks. But citing agency documents and computer experts, it said the NSA has also made use of secret technology that allows it to enter or alter data even in computers not connected to the Internet. The technology, in use since 2008, uses a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from small circuit boards and USB cards inserted secretly into the computers by a spy, manufacturer or unwitting user.


Covert channel
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In computer security, a covert channel is a type of computer security attack that creates a capability to transfer information objects between processes that are not supposed to be allowed to communicate by the computer security policy. The term, originated in 1973 by Lampson is defined as "(channels) not intended for information transfer at all, such as the service program's effect on system load." to distinguish it from Legitimate channels that are subjected to access controls by COMPUSEC.[1]

Contents

1 Characteristics
1.1 TCSEC criteria
2 Identifying covert channels
3 Eliminating covert channels
4 Data hiding in OSI model
5 Data hiding in LAN environment by covert channels
6 Data hiding in TCP/IP Protocol suite by covert channels
7 See also
8 References
9 Additional reading
10 External links

Characteristics

A covert channel is so called because it is hidden from the access control mechanisms of ultra-high-assurance secure operating systems since it does not use the legitimate data transfer mechanisms of the computer system such as read and write, and therefore cannot be detected or controlled by the hardware based security mechanisms that underlie ultra-high-assurance secure operating systems. Covert channels are exceedingly hard to install in real systems, and can often be detected by monitoring system performance; in addition, they suffer from a low signal-to-noise ratio and low data rates (on the order of a few bits per second). They can also be removed manually with a high degree of assurance from secure systems by well established covert channel analysis strategies.

Covert channels are distinct from, and often confused with, legitimate channel exploitations that attack low-assurance pseudo-secure systems using schemes such as steganography or even less sophisticated schemes to disguise prohibited objects inside of legitimate information objects. The legitimate channel misuse by steganography is specifically not a form of covert channel[citation needed].

Covert channels can tunnel through secure operating systems and require special measures to control. Covert channel analysis is the only proven way to control covert channels.[citation needed] By contrast, secure operating systems can easily prevent misuse of legitimate channels. Distinguishing these is important. Analysis of legitimate channels for hidden objects is often misrepresented as the only successful countermeasure for legitimate channel misuse. Because this amounts to analysis of large amounts of software, it was shown as early as 1972 to be impractical.[2] Without being informed of this, some are misled to believe an analysis will "manage the risk" of these legitimate channels.
TCSEC criteria

The Trusted Computer Security Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) is a set of criteria established by the National Computer Security Center, an agency managed by the United States' National Security Agency.

Lampson's definition of a covert channel was paraphrased in the TCSEC [3] specifically to refer to ways of transferring information from a higher classification compartment to a lower classification. In a shared processing environment, it is difficult to completely insulate one process from the effects another process can have on the operating environment. A covert channel is created by a sender process that modulates some condition (such as free space, availability of some service, wait time to execute) that can be detected by a receiving process.

The TCSEC defines two kinds of covert channels:

Storage channels - Communicate by modifying a "storage location"
Timing channels - Perform operations that affect the "real response time observed" by the receiver

The TCSEC, also known as the Orange Book,[4] requires analysis of covert storage channels to be classified as a B2 system and analysis of covert timing channels is a requirement for class B3.
Identifying covert channels

Ordinary things, such as existence of a file or time used for a computation, have been the medium through which a covert channel communicates. Covert channels are not easy to find because these media are so numerous and frequently used.

Two relatively old techniques remain the standards for locating potential covert channels. One works by analyzing the resources of a system and other works at the source-code level.
Eliminating covert channels

The possibility of covert channels cannot be completely eliminated[citation needed], although it can be significantly reduced by careful design and analysis.

The detection of a covert channel can be made more difficult by using characteristics of the communications medium for the legitimate channel that are never controlled or examined by legitimate users. For example, a file can be opened and closed by a program in a specific, timed pattern that can be detected by another program, and the pattern can be interpreted as a string of bits, forming a covert channel. Since it is unlikely that legitimate users will check for patterns of file opening and closing operations, this type of covert channel can remain undetected for long periods.

A similar case is port knocking. In usual communications the timing of requests is irrelevant and unwatched. Port knocking makes it significant.
Data hiding in OSI model

As Handel and Sanford take a broader perspective and focus on covert channels within the general design of network communication protocols. They employ the OSI model as a basis for their development in which they characterize system elements having potential to be used for data hiding. The adopted approach has advantages over these because standards opposed to specific network environments or architectures are considered. Foolproof steganographic schemes are not devised.

Rather, basic principles for data hiding in each of seven OSI layers are established. Besides suggesting the use of the reserved fields of protocols headers (that are easily detectable) at higher network layers, Handel and Sanford also propose the possibility of timing channels involving CSMA/CD manipulation at the physical layer.

The work by them identifies covert channel merit such as:

Detectability: Covert channel must be measurable by the intended recipient only.
Indistinguishability: Covert channel must lack identification.
Bandwidth: number of data hiding bits per channel use.

The covert channel analysis presented here, however does not consider issue such as interoperability of these data hiding techniques with other network nodes, covert channel capacity estimation, effect of data hiding on the network in terms of complexity and compatibility. Moreover, the generality of the techniques cannot be fully justified in practice since the OSI model does not exist per se in functional systems.
Data hiding in LAN environment by covert channels

As Girling first analyzes covert channels in a network environment. His work focuses on local area networks (LANs) in which three obvious covert channels (two storage channel and one timing channel) are identified. This demonstrates the real examples of bandwidth possibilities for simple covert channels in LANs. For a specific LAN environment, the author introduced the notion of a wiretapper who monitors the activities of a specific transmitter on LAN. The covertly communication parties are the transmitter and the wire trapper. The covert information according to Girling can be communicated through any of following obvious ways:

By observing the addresses as approached by the transmitter. If total number of addresses a sender can approach is 16, then there is a possibility of secret communication having 4 bits for the secret message. The author termed this possibility as covert storage channel as it depends in what is sent (i.e., which address is approached by the sender)
In the same way, the other obvious storage covert channel would depend on the size of the frame sent by the sender. For the 256 possible sizes, the amount of covert information deciphered from one size of the frame would be of 8 bits. Again this scenario was termed as the covert storage channel.
The third scenario presented is pertaining to the existence sends can be observed by the wire trappers to decipher for instance “0” for the odd time difference and “1” for the even time difference.

The scenario transmits covert information through “a when-is-sent” strategy therefore termed as timing covert channel. The time to transmit a block of data is calculated as function of software processing time, network speed, network block sizes and protocol overhead. Assuming block of various sizes are transmitted on the LAN, software overhead is computed on average and novel time evaluation is used to estimate the bandwidth (capacity) of covert channels are also presented. The work paves the way for future research.
Data hiding in TCP/IP Protocol suite by covert channels

A more specific approach is adopted by Rowland. Focusing on the IP and TCP headers of TCP/IP Protocol suite, Rowland devises proper encoding and decoding techniques by utilizing the IP identification field, the TCP initial sequence number and acknowledge sequence number fields. These techniques are implemented in a simple utility written for Linux systems running version 2.0 kernels.

Rowland simply provides a proof of concept of existence as well as exploitation of covert channels in TCP/IP protocol suite. This work can, thus, be regarded as a practical breakthrough in this specific area. The adopted encoding and decoding techniques are more pragmatic as compared to previously proposed work. These techniques are analyzed considering security mechanisms like firewall network address translation.

However, the non-detectability of these covert communication techniques is questionable. For instance, a case where sequence number field of TCP header is manipulated, the encoding scheme is adopted such that every time the same alphabet is covertly communicated, it is encoded with the same sequence number.

Moreover, the usages of sequence number field as well as the acknowledgment field cannot be made specific to the ASCII coding of English language alphabet as proposed, since both fields take into account the receipt of data bytes pertaining to specific network packet(s).

The Data Hiding in TCP/IP Protocol suit by covert channels have following important aspects:

Identify the existence of covert channels in a network environment.
Point to devising satisfying techniques of embedding and extraction processes at the source and destination, respectively.
Do not consider the effect of employing covert communications network as a whole.

See also

Computer surveillance
Side channel attack
Steganography
Subliminal channel

References

Jump up ^ Lampson, B.W., A Note on the Confinement Problem. Communications of the ACM, Oct.1973.16(10):p. 613-615. [1]
Jump up ^ http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/project...ers/ande72.pdf
Jump up ^ NCSC-TG-030, Covert Channel Analysis of Trusted Systems (Light Pink Book) from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) Rainbow Series publications.
Jump up ^ 5200.28-STD, Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (Orange Book) from the DoD Rainbow Series publications

Additional reading

Timing Channels an early exploitation of a timing channel in Multics.
Covert channel tool hides data in IPv6, SecurityFocus, August 11, 2006.
Covert Channels in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, 1996 Paper by Craig Rowland on covert channels in the TCP/IP protocol with proof of concept code.
Raggo, Michael; Hosmer, Chet (2012). Data Hiding: Exposing Concealed Data in Multimedia, Operating Systems, Mobile Devices and Network Protocols. Syngress Publishing. ISBN 978-1597497435.

External links

Gray-World - Open Source Research Team : Tools and Papers
Steath Network Operations Centre - Covert Communication Support System

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Covert channel tool hides data in IPv6
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2006-08-11

An independent security researcher showed off an early version of a tool for creating covert channels that, he claims, can pass undetected through most firewalls and intrusion detection systems.


“ The solution is network devices that understand IPv6 better. ”

Joe Klein, network security expert, North American IPv6 Task Force

The tool, dubbed VoodooNet or v00d00n3t, uses the ability of most computers to encapsulate next-generation network traffic, known as Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), inside of today's network communications standard, or IPv4. Because most security hardware appliances and host-based intrusion detection programs have not been programmed to inspect IPv6 packets in depth, data can bypass most network security, said independent security researcher Robert Murphy, who presented the tool at the DEFCON hacking conference last weekend.

"Most network hardware only knows to pass the traffic along," Murphy said. "For example, the Windows firewall does not handle IPv6 so these packets pass right though."

The tool takes advantage of a lack of understanding of many of the issues that the next-generation network data standard poses to organization's network security. The U.S. federal government and many major corporations are transitioning to the standard by the end of the decade. The U.S. Department of Defense and the White House's Office of Management and Budget have mandated that the military services and federal agencies move their backbone systems to IPv6 by June 30, 2008.

While many network security applications have not been programmed to inspect IPv6 data, the standard is widely supported by routing software. Linux, Mac and Windows XP allow IPv6 networking for compatibility, while Microsoft's next-generation operating system, Vista, uses the standard as the default networking protocol. Microsoft supports wrapping IPv6 packets inside of IPv4 data, known as 6to4 tunneling, so that networks sending data using IPv6 can communicate across the Internet, which mainly runs IPv4. Most routers also support the next-generation networking standards as well.

Transitioning technologies always poses problems for security managers, said Joe Klein, a network expert with the North American IPv6 Task Force and a senior security consultant with Honeywell.

"We are expecting a lot here to be discovered and disclosed," Klein said. "But just like the early implementation of any technology, we expect to find defects and covert channels."

The tool uses Internet Control Message Protocol version 6, or ICMPv6, to send ping packets from one computer to another, hiding information in certain fields of the packets without violating any existing Internet Request for Comment (RFC)--the documents that set the technical guidelines for Internet technology.

The packets have a target address for the network where the recipient PC resides and a key, which identifies which covert PC on that network is the destination. The stealthiest mode only sends a single byte per ping, but up to 32 bytes can be sent, sacrificing stealth for throughput.

Klein believes that the communications would not be detected by existing IPv4 devices, and that bot nets, among other threats, could use the technology for stealthier command and control channels. However, programming devices with knowledge of IPv6 could easily detect the channel.

"The solution is network devices that understand IPv6 better," Klein said. "Intrusion detection systems that fully implement IPv6, for instance."

He also points to one feature of the system that could give away any PCs that are taking part in covert communications using the tool: The initial version of the tool sets the endpoint computers to listen in promiscuous mode to pick up data sent to their network.

Dan Kaminsky, a well-known network security expert, points out that covert channels are nothing new, and while an implementation using ICMP packets may not have been created yet, sending data using 6to4 tunneling has been around for a few years.

"Yes, firewalls need to be more aware that these transition technologies exist and need to handle them better," Kaminsky said. "But ICMP tunnels have existed for, what, 10 or 15 years? Doing it using IPv6 is not difficult. You break into a box and hit IPv6 enable."

While the technique may work today, as more companies start deploying IPv6, security will quickly catch up.

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Last Surviving Member Of Siberian Family Who Isolated Themselves From Society In 1936 Begs The Outside World For Help
Adam Taylor

Jan. 17, 2014, 11:28 AM 19,209 20

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Agafya Lykova Russia Siberia

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In 1936, fearing persecution from Joseph Stalin's Soviet Russia, the Lykov family cut themselves off from Russian society. They were Old Believers, and thus part of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect that was facing intense persecution from Russia's atheist Bolshevik government in Moscow. The family's patriarch, Karp Lykov, had seen his own brother shot by Communist troops, and decided it was better for his family to escape into the harsh Siberian wilderness.

The family lived in complete isolation, barely knowledgeable of the outside world, for decades. Now there's only one surviving member — a 70-year-old named Agafia who's facing a harsh winter by herself, according to a heartbreaking article in the Siberian Times today.

"I don't know how God will help me survive the winter," she said in a letter to a local newspaper, which was cited by the Siberian Times. "There aren't any logs. I need to get them into the house, and I need to keep reading my prayers. I'm suffocating, and I am getting too cold while doing it when the weather is freezing."

It was only in 1978 that the wider world heard of the Lykov story, when, by chance, a helicopter carrying Soviet geologists looking for a spot to land, discovered the family's base camp, 150 miles away from the nearest known settlement.

Since then, the Lykov family has become something of a legend. They were the family who never learned of World War II; paid no taxes and knew no laws; read only prayer books and an ancient bible; and sustained themselves in one of the world's harshest environments with no outside help and no technology. The discovery of their story was itself tragic, however — three of Karp's eldest children died within weeks of each other shortly after the geologists visited. It's widely believed they died from pneumonia caused by the outsiders' visit.

Last year the incredible story of the Lykovs was brought renewed attention after an article from Mike Dash of Smithsonian Magazine in January. A few months later, Vice Magazine went to the deepest parts of the Siberian taiga to visit the family's last remaining member, Agafia, who was born into the family in 1944 and never knew the outside world. She had lived alone for decades, and told Vice how her only regular contact with the outside world was a radio she now owned.

“I listen to the news about crime and explosions,” Agafia told them. “It’s scary. What’s wrong with [those] people who make suicidal public explosions?”

While Agafia's story made a big splash last year, the media cycle moves on, and the attention was fleeting until today's story in the Siberian Times.

"I am all alone, my years are big, my health is bad, I keep getting ill," Agafia said in the letter cited by the newspaper. "There is a lump on my right breast, and my strength is going. There is a need for a person, a helper, assuming there are kind people in the world, as the world has always had kind people."

The thought of the elderly Agafia facing such a harsh winter is tough. But not all locals are sympathetic — she has been offered a winter home in a local village before, the Siberian Times reports, but has refused it.

"She is being a little cunning," Vladimir Pavlovsky, editor of the local paper Krasnoyarskiy Rabochiy, told the Siberian Times. "She has no hunger. She wants to attract more attention. She has enough cereals, bags of them lie on her porch, and everywhere. And she has enough potatoes."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/agafya-lykova-asks-for-help-2014-1#ixzz2quf3U3tW

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For example, on September 7, 1988, in a presentation to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Atlanta, Georgia, Rich lamented that he was prohibited from discussing Skunkwork’s current projects, but he did say that they “call for technologies once only dreamed of by science fiction writers.”[51]

In ensuing years, Rich elaborated slightly. For instance, while speaking to the UCLA School of Engineering Alumni Association in 1993, Rich said that “an error in the equations” had been discovered and corrected, making it possible “to travel to the stars.”[52] He added, however, that “these technologies are so locked up in black programs, that it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity.”[53]

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https://twitter.com/demandprogress

Fresno, Clovis, China Peak, Morro Bay Webcams | ABC30 Skycams | abc30.com

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Nancy M. (FULLSRVLAW)
190
SUPER USER?403 Fans?Find joy every day.
The Christie administration is circling the wagons. Now, we have the coverup which is when most politicians screw up (Nixon). The question remains: why did Hoboken receive such a tiny sum for the damage caused by Sandy?
20 JAN 7:35 AM
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Ann Zimmer (hearken)
116
1,723 Fans
Because money was being funneled into Christie's campaign would be a good guess.
20 JAN 7:48 AM
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FULLSRVLAWhearkenbaba265516 PEOPLE IN THE CONVERSATION Read Conversation →

Antony C. (outlandish)
229
POLITICAL PUNDIT?11,939 Fans?In something we trust
Something doesn’t add up if mayor Zimmer only received $300000 from team tightwad considering she asked for $100 million. Because the damage was thousands time more than enough money to buy a generator.

I feel sorry for mayor Zimmer for believing if she played along and took the abuses her city would be made whole and sound but it turned out that Mr. Cleans up corruption was just eliminating the competition before he threw his voluminous hat in the ring to run for governor.

The list of misdeeds is rolling out like a cash register receipt after a grocery shopping expedition by the Christie family and I get the feeling a new roll will have to be added to finally tally up what he and his administration have run up in indictable charges.

Imagine how surprised I was to read that the Lieutenant Governor denied the charges that she used strong arm tactics to force through a project for a development by a major Republican donor organization, especially considering that the developers lawyer was Chris Christie’s bromance, General, (how pretentious) Samson, the same guy who was head of the Port Authority.

You could have knocked me over with a feather that Ms. Guadagno denied any wrongdoing. I had her picked as being as honest as the 2 people Christie fired and the 13 others implicated by email that received subpoenas over the imaginary 2 lane bridge shutdown that imaginarily went on for 4 days and imaginarily went unnoticed by the imaginary governor who because of his imaginary status remained really clueless.

I was so sure that there might be at least one Republican that would do the “Republican Thing” of taking personal responsibility and climb out of the swamp that is deepening by the hour.

But you know Republicans, when they say personal responsibility; they mean they’ll shift the responsibility onto the victims of their actions, personally.

So blame mayor Zimmer for some nebulous reason why she only got less than 1% of the money she asked for, while at the same time Ms Guadagno approved a federally paid for campaign ad for governor super hero, titled stronger than the storm in an election year that cost ? of what mayor Zimmer needed to save a whole town.

It’s never the corruption but there’s a Mt, Everest sized amount of evidence rising daily but the cover-up and denials that bring people down and downwards they go, a floor at a time and well into the sub basement where the dark things go to hide.

I would LOL if one of these people showed the intestinal fortitude to admit what they did but they all believed they were above the rule of law, just like the mafia believed in New Jersey through the bulk of the last century.

20 JAN 9:00 AM
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Chris F. (fitley)
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SUPER USER?2,383 Fans?I pity the same ones as Laurence Tureaud
Mitt told 533 documented lies in 30 weeks. These amateurs have a long way to go to beat that record.
20 JAN 7:46 AM
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I TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD:
December 19, 2013

"I know you guys are obsessed with this (bridge). I'm not, I'm really not. It's just -- it's not that big a deal just because press runs around and writes about it both here and nationally. I know why that is and so do you," Christie said at a news conference. "Let's not pretend that it's because of the gravity of the issue. It's because I am a national figure and anything like this will be written about a lot now. So, let's not pretend."

I TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD:
January 9, 2014

"I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team. There's no doubt in my mind that the conduct that they exhibited is completely unacceptable and showed a lack of respect for their appropriate role in government and for the people that we are trusted to serve."
20 JAN 2:48 PM
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Grinter Place

Grinter family

As the result of a long series of wars beginning in colonial times, the United States by the early 1820s contained a large subject population of American Indians. Eventually the country turned to Indian removal, a policy which from 1825 to 1843 relocated more than one hundred thousand people from their homes in the East to new reservations west of the Mississippi River. The new permanent military Indian frontier coursed through present-day Minnesota and Iowa and more or less followed today's Kansas-Missouri, Oklahoma-Arkansas, and Texas-Louisiana state boundaries, thus separating the U.S. from Indian Territory.

More than 10,000 emigrant Indians from about two dozen tribes or nations were brought to Kansas. Two of the eight military posts spanning the permanent military Indian frontier, Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott, tried to maintain order among the emigrant Indians and U.S. citizens along the borders of Indian Territory.

Annie GrinterTroops traveling between Forts Leavenworth and Scott sometimes crossed the Kansas River on a ferry operated by Moses Grinter. A native of Kentucky, Grinter married Annie Marshall, a Lenape (Delaware) Indian whose people had been relocated to the Fort Leavenworth Indian Agency in the early 1830s. Moses and Annie Grinter's later home, a two-story brick house completed in 1857, is preserved today as the oldest home in Wyandotte County.

Moses GrinterFrom 1855 to 1860 Moses Grinter operated a trading post, a business that sold about one hundred sixty types of goods (clothing, powder and bullets, perfume, sugar, and scissors, among other things) to the Delawares in exchange for cash and furs. The Grinters also farmed, raised poultry and livestock, and planted an apple orchard on their farmstead. During the Civil War one of their sons served in the Fifteenth Kansas Calvary.

Moses Grinter died in 1878, and upon the death of Annie in 1905 their son-in-law and daughter, Reverend Henry C. and Martha V. Grinter Kirby, moved into the residence. Henry and Martha's daughter sold the residence and land in 1950 to a family who owned and operated a chicken-dinner restaurant on the site until the mid-1960s. Through the assistance of the Junior League of Kansas City, Kansas and the Grinter Place Friends, the state of Kansas acquired the site in 1971, which it now administers as Grinter Place Historic Site.

Amy Hollyfield
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Protesters stopped two buses at 8th and Market from leaving San Francisco this morning. The shuttles were headed towards the Google and Facebook campuses on the Peninsula. Activists are trying to get a lot of attention before today's hearing by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency on the pilot program for tech buses.

Residents and city officials said that the shuttles clog up traffic and delay Muni buses from making their stops. Critics also say the city has not benefitted economically.

"How is it that for two years the buses have been able to get a free ride on our Muni bus stops while we, the public, who are trying to survive each day, get a ticket for $279," said protester Roberto Hernandez.

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Mayor Ed Lee is out of town today, but has said in the past that the buses have benefits.

"I certainly don't agree with (the protesters') opinion. I hope they would not block the buses. People need to get to work," said San Francisco resident Dave Schwab.

The protest is about more than the bus stops; the buses symbolize the impact of tech companies on the city's economy. The protesters say they are worried about people getting evicted as the price of rent goes up and they are not concerned about delaying the people getting to work.

"They are getting paid either way. They are all getting paid by Google; there is Wi-Fi on the bus. I feel much worse about the folks who have lost their home of 30 years," said a protester Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer.

Protesters blocked the buses for 30 minutes until police started talking about moving in and making arrests.

The deal transportation officials will vote on will require shuttle bus operators to have a permit and pay $1 for every stop they make every day. Critics say that isn't enough. A spokesperson said because of Proposition 218, and the California vehicle code, they can only recover their costs and can't make a profit. The meeting is scheduled to take place at 1 p.m.

"Tech Crunch" says it obtained a leaked memo that Google sent to its San Francisco resident employees who might want to speak in favor of the policy at today's meeting. It suggests talking points such as "I am so proud to live in San Francisco and be a part of this community," or, "If the shuttle program didn't exist, I would continue to live in San Francisco and drive to work on the Peninsula."

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...sco&id=9401732

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Nursing home abuse and neglect on the rise in Texas

A KVUE Defenders investigation uncovered cases of nursing home neglect on the rise across Texas. The investigation also discovered that facilities repeatedly cited for violations rarely see their contracts terminated with the state, despite getting millions in taxpayer dollars.
One of those abused included 97-year-old Minnie Graham. Her granddaughter Shirley Ballard considered her a saint.

“She would do anything for anybody. She would give you the shirt off her back,” Ballard said.

When Graham’s dementia took its toll a few years ago, her family put her in a Dallas-area nursing home.

After noticing bruises on her hands and face, they put a clock in her room equipped with a hidden camera.

A few days later, they reviewed the video in horror. They saw two nursing home aids slapping her on separate occasions. Video also showed a male aid shoving her head in the bed and then later flips Graham the middle finger.

Ballard said it was difficult to watch.

“It was hurtful that they would do that to her, because they don’t know her like I know her,” Ballard said.

Both aids were fired and charged with elderly abuse. Graham died about a month after the video was recorded.

According to the Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS), deficiencies involving Texas nursing homes jumped from 14,215 in 2011 to 15,113 in 2012. The most severe violations, which put patients in immediate danger, increased by 35 percent.

“This is crisis mode right now for Texas,” said Brian Lee, executive director for Families for Better Care.

Earlier this year, the nonprofit released what it says is the first comprehensive state-by-state review of nursing home care.

It calculated its grades using data from Medicaid. The analysis involved staffing numbers, inspections, deficiencies and complaints.

Texas failed.

Full Article and Source:
Nursing home abuse and neglect on the rise in Texas

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Judith Ohikuare Jan 21 2014, 3:27 PM ET
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In 2005, James Fallon's life started to resemble the plot of a well-honed joke or big-screen thriller: A neuroscientist is working in his laboratory one day when he thinks he has stumbled upon a big mistake. He is researching Alzheimer's and using his healthy family members' brain scans as a control, while simultaneously reviewing the fMRIs of murderous psychopaths for a side project. It appears, though, that one of the killers' scans has been shuffled into the wrong batch.

The scans are anonymously labeled, so the researcher has a technician break the code to identify the individual in his family, and place his or her scan in its proper place. When he sees the results, however, Fallon immediately orders the technician to double check the code. But no mistake has been made: The brain scan that mirrors those of the psychopaths is his own.

After discovering that he had the brain of a psychopath, Fallon delved into his family tree and spoke with experts, colleagues, relatives, and friends to see if his behavior matched up with the imaging in front of him. He not only learned that few people were surprised at the outcome, but that the boundary separating him from dangerous criminals was less determinate than he presumed. Fallon wrote about his research and findings in the book The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain, and we spoke about the idea of nature versus nurture, and what—if anything—can be done for people whose biology might betray their behavior.

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The report that everybody's talking about this morning is Oxfam's opus on global inequality, which leads with an eye-popping statistic: The richest 85 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the entire global population.

Yes, that equation works out to: 85 > 3,000,000,000.

Before we dig into the document, a programming note about wealth inequality. Wealth isn't income. Salary is income. But investments—stocks, houses, or equity in a business—build wealth. Wealth comes from the money you don't immediately spend. Since poor people spend more of their income immediately, and rich people save/invest more of their income immediately, it's predictable that wealth inequality be much worse than income inequality.

That said, the document is full of figures that will make your head explode if you are about income inequality. Here are five.

1) Seven in ten people live in countries where inequality has increased, and the United States is leading the wave. This graph from the report looks at national income (not wealth) accumulation to the top one percent, but it makes a clear point that inequality is rising everywhere, but nowhere more than the U.S.

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Sat Sep 28, 2013 at 07:23 PM PDT
Police brutalize 67 year old Alzheimer's patient for "non compliance"

Again the police use the public as first prize in a turkey shoot. This time a 67 year old confused woman was shot and tased repeatedly although she posed no threat to anyone besides perhaps Sir Robin.

Again this shows that police are not being held accountable for the damage they do to society. If they were, bringing a weapon out would have never entered their mind. It goes against all guidelines of conflict resolution to brandish weapons, you automatically put the opponent on the defensive. Or in the case of the confused woman just have a literal blast putting holes in her body for no apparent reason. Other than "non compliance". I've dealt with the aged in my working life, it takes little effort to TALK to them and Listen to them to define the problem and work on addressing the actual issues. Creating a resolution accepted by all.

When the police arrived, both David and Dolores were in the backyard; Dolores still had the letter opener, and David was trying to calm the distressed woman. When Sgt. Courtney Letalien walked into the yard with a shotgun, she immediately tried to remove David from the yard even as he became upset at the sight of the shotgun and repeatedly pleaded with the officer to put the gun away. He explained that he had not been stabbed, that force would be unnecessary and he could calm his wife, even if she would not comply with orders to drop the letter opener.

That was when her partner, Officer George Reed, took the first shot at Dolores Seyfried with a Taser.

“When Delores did not fall, Letalien immediately shot Delores with the less lethal shotgun at her thigh,” the complaint states. “When once again Delores did not fall or release the letter opener, Letalien shot Delores once again in the other thigh. The second round did knock Delores to the ground but she was able to get back on her feet. Defendants allege that Delores maintained her hand on the letter opener during this time. When Delores turned to walk away from the officers, Letalien shot Delores a third time in the left buttocks with the shotgun. When the third round did not cause Delores to fall, Letalien switched to his Taser and deployed a cartridge with one probe hitting Delores in the back and the other hitting her on her right buttocks. Letalien found this force to be ‘effective’ when she fell to the ground. Reed then tried to step on her wrist to handcuff her, David says, and thinking she was resisting, Reed Tasered her again.”

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"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." --Townes Van Zandt

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Teen Robbed At Gunpoint Files Complaint Against Lewisville Police
September 6, 2013 10:20 PM
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LEWISVILLE (CBSDFW.COM) - A North Texas teen robbed at gunpoint over the weekend says she was victimized again—this time by police. The 19-year-old claims Lewisville police officers didn’t take her seriously– and instead of searching for the armed suspects, repeatedly accused her of being drunk.

This 19-year-old woman claims Lewisville police officers didn’t take her seriously-- and instead of searching for the armed suspects, repeatedly accused her of being drunk. (credit: CBS 11 News)

“They treated me like crap,” insists Kayla. “They treated me like I was joking, like I was the person in the wrong.” She has since filed a complaint with the department.

The 19-year-old didn’t want her last name used; but, still trembles as she talks about the house party in Lewisville… and the turn it took toward terror.

“I can still feel the gun on my head,” says Kayla. “In my head, I honestly thought it was a joke… and that could have got me killed.”

On Saturday, Kayla says she became uncomfortable after three guests—two men and a woman—appeared at the house party that no one in attendance seemed to openly acknowledge. The three soon disappeared and Kayla says she told her boyfriend that she was ready to leave. She says she stepped outside to tell another friend goodbye when someone shoved a gun in her back, and another person put another gun to her head. A third armed suspect had several other party guests seated on the ground as they were being robbed of keys, wallets and cell phones. Kayla says the only one she got a glimpse of had a shirt pulled over his head.

“If I scared them and they pulled that trigger, my head would be blown off,” says Kayla, wiping away tears. “I wouldn’t have been able to see my family again.”

After the robbers disappeared around the edge of the house, Kayla says she ran into the house screaming.

“I ran out front to see if I could stop them,” says Joseph. “I was chasing them and they shot a round off in the middle of the street and from there they were gone.”

A neighbor heard the gunfire and phoned police.

“After that gunshot, it was just crazy—pandemonium! They were running through, I guess, trying to get away.” The neighbor didn’t want his name used; but, says he was very concerned—and was surprised that police never came to speak with him.

In spite of giving detailed descriptions of the get-away car and possible suspects, both Joseph and Kayla say the police officers that responded were rude, condescending, and didn’t take them seriously. Kayla says she was bombarded with personal questions and the officers insisted that she was using drugs or drinking. Other guests confirmed that all she drank at the party was water.

Lewisville Police confirmed to CBS 11 News that officers subjected Kayla to a variety of field sobriety tests—and she passed them all.



“I can’t tell you how many times we told them, we got robbed… this is what happened,” says Joseph. “They just thought we were the ones that did it. It was very, very frustrating that they would treat us that way.”

It didn’t help that the party hosts told police that nothing had happened. Neighbors say the family moved out the very next day.

Lewisville police confirmed that robbery reports were filed and have been assigned to a detective. They also say that any complaints will be taken seriously. A department spokesperson told us via email, “We hold our officers to a high standard and are always willing to look into allegation of rudeness or misconduct.” Police officials also tell CBS 11 that officers were in a difficult position because they were getting conflicting witness accounts. “When an officer takes control of a scene, especially the scene of a violent crime, their actions are often seen as rude or uncaring. In actuality, we are just trying to ensure the safety of all involved.”

But, Kayla wants an apology.

“I can’t go to the police for help… and that’s what they’re there for isn’t it? For help? To feel safe. But, I didn’t.”

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Last week Pope Francis replaced four out of the top five officers overseeing the Vatican Bank in a move that sent shock-waves through the public leadership of many countries. In probably most countries of the world, when a new leader is installed, that person gets a visit from a cabal officer like Henry Kissinger who hands them a Vatican bank account book containing a huge bribe, according to sources including former CIA chiefs. The leaders are then told that if they do not accept the money and follow cabal orders they will be assassinated, driven out by scandal, or failing that, have their country invaded by US troops. For that reason, the change at the top of the Vatican bank is a sure sign something big is coming down.

Also last week Queen Elizabeth announced she was going to hand duties over to Prince Charles as well as to Princes William and Harry, starting a ?gentle succession.? Elizabeth is thus following Queen Beatrix of Holland and the King of Belgium in resigning in recent years from positions that are traditionally held for life. The generational change in royal families is in preparation for a change at the very top of the financial system, a Rothschild family source said.

There is also a big storm brewing in China where a massive purge is expected to start in March with the complete replacement of ..........


Weekly geo-political news and analysis

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Kim Pham, a Huntington Beach resident,