FBI

Recently released documents detail the federal government's inability to pursue cybercriminals shrouded by the tricky anonymity tools used by the Silk Road marketplace and other darknet sites - tools which are funded in part by the federal government itself. In this particular case, a citizen reported stumbling upon a cache of child pornography while browsing the anonymous Tor network's hidden sites, which are viewable with specialized, but readily available, tools and the special .onion domain.

Professional social networking site LinkedIn is working hard to set things right after millions of its users' passwords were hacked. It is reported that the site is working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track down the hackers.

The FBI sees the anonymous Bitcoin payment network as an alarming haven for money laundering and other criminal activity — including as a tool for hackers to rip off fellow Bitcoin users.

The FBI today warned travelers there has been an uptick in malicious software infecting laptops and other devices linked to hotel Internet connections.

The FBI wasn't specific about any particular hotel chain, nor the software involved but stated: "Recent analysis from the FBI and other government agencies demonstrates that malicious actors are targeting travelers abroad through pop-up windows while they are establishing an Internet connection in their hotel rooms. 

The FBI announced Monday that it arrested John Anthony Borell III, 21, on charges of participating in two January 2012 Anonymous attacks against police websites in Utah. Borell was arrested in Ohio on March 20, 2012, and indicted by a federal grand jury on April 4, 2012, on two counts of computer intrusion involving SQL injection attacks. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A lawyer for FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds said Tuesday the bureau's prepublication review office has adopted overly expansive restrictions that are preventing Edmonds from publishing a book about her life at the FBI.

Edmonds, once a contract linguist at the bureau, was fired a decade ago after complaining to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations and alleging that an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security by blocking translations in some cases and notifying targets of FBI surveillance.

A series of hacks perpetrated against so-called “smart meter” installations over the past several years may have cost a single U.S. electric utility hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the FBI said in a cyber intelligence bulletin obtained by KrebsOnSecurity. The law enforcement agency said this is the first known report of criminals compromising the hi-tech meters, and that it expects this type of fraud to spread across the country as more utilities deploy smart grid technology.

Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.'' Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them, he said. 

Having difficulty gaining access to a pimp's Android phone they seized, the FBI has turned to Google for help. The FBI, which didn't have the right to search the phone without a warrant, obtained one in February. However, after sending it off to the FBI Regional Computer Forensics lab in California, technicians there “attempted to gain access to the contents of the memory of the cellular phone in question, but were unable to do so” says the FBI. Apparently they were defeated by Android's “pattern lock” screen.

Here's something for you to think about: Was the arrest last week of the five LulzSec members just part of an intermediate stop gap in the pursuit of a far more prominent fugitive, namely Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks?