Former Bush Official Charged For Erasing Computer Files

By GottaLaff

I have a feeling that, little by little, more and more members of the Bush crime family will be finding themselves in this awkward little stress position:

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch was charged today with criminal contempt of Congress in connection with his notorious use of Geeks On Call to scrub his computer while under investigation for misusing his office, according to a court filing in federal court in Washington. [...]

That was in late 2006.

I just adore skipping down Memory Lane, especially when it leads me to a happy ending.

Malware delivered by Yahoo, Fox, Drudge, Google ads

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

These charts show incidences of malware distributed by a number of ad delivery platforms over a six-day period last month that were detected by Avast. Yahoo and Fox have the highest counts. (Credit: Avast)

Drudge and ClusterFox make us sick enough already. Now we have their computer viruses to contend with:

Malware that exploits holes in popular applications is being delivered by big ad delivery platforms including those run by Yahoo, Fox, and Google, according to Prague-based antivirus firm Avast.

Viruses and other malware were found to be lurking in ads last year on high-profile sites like The New York Times and conservative news aggregator Drudge Report.com, and this year on Drudge, TechCrunch and WhitePages.com. The practice has been dubbed "malvertising." [...]

Users don't need to click on anything to get infected; a computer becomes infected after the ad is loaded by the browser, Avast said.

More here.

Mid Day Distraction

Insidious Worm Makes Unauthorized Purchases When Computer User Is Drunk
I've heard of this worm...

Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide

By GottaLaff

Not good:

A new digital plague has hit the Internet, infecting millions of personal and business computers in what seems to be the first step of a multistage attack. The world’s leading computer security experts do not yet know who programmed the infection, or what the next stage will be.

In recent weeks a worm, a malicious software program, has swept through corporate, educational and public computer networks around the world. Known as Conficker or Downadup, it is spread by a recently discovered Microsoft Windows vulnerability, by guessing network passwords and by hand-carried consumer gadgets like USB keys.

Experts say it is the worst infection since the Slammer worm exploded through the Internet in January 2003, and it may have infected as many as nine million personal computers around the world.

Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their clandestine masters. “If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon,” said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer security consulting firm based in San Francisco.

I'd rather concentrate on our video of cool Obama moves.

Triple whammy

By GottaLaff

Three headlines, three big messes:

1. Number of juveniles held at Guantanamo almost twice official Pentagon figure: Canadian national Omar Khadr (right) is still being held at Guantanamo Bay. Accused of murder, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15.

On Sunday, the Pentagon admitted that 12 juveniles -- those under the age of 18 at the time their alleged crimes took place -- have been held at Guantanamo Bay (as opposed to the figure of eight that was submitted to the UN in May).

But a RAW STORY count, drawn from the Pentagon's own records, reveals that the total number of juveniles held at Guantanamo is at least 22 -- nearly double the official Pentagon figure.

2. Some Defense Department computer networks have been infected with a "global virus": "We are aware of a global virus for which there are some public alerts on," said Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman. "And we've seen some of this on our networks. And we're taking steps to identify and mitigate the virus."

Whitman would not identify the virus or say what steps have been taken, and it was not known whether the virus had spread to classified computer networks.

3. Guantanamo judge rejects 'forced' confession: A US military judge in Guantanamo Bay has thrown out the US government's evidence against an Afghan detainee because it was obtained under coercion, a rights group said Friday.

The decision came late Wednesday in a preliminary hearing in the trial of Mohammed Jawad, arrested in Kabul in 2002 as a teenager on charges of throwing a grenade that wounded two American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. [...]

"If the government continues to prosecute this case, it will only provide further evidence that the military commissions system is a sham aimed at obtaining convictions regardless of the facts or the law," said ACLU staff attorney Hina Shamsi.

The lead prosecutor in Jawad's case, lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, quit in September due to "ethical concerns."

BushCo: Keeping the U.S. safe since 2001.