When a high-profile public figure living in Hong Kong hired the security company Trustwave to test if its experts could get his passwords, they turned to Facebook.
While the dangers of sharing too much data on Facebook are well-known, it is surprising how little data can give hackers a foothold. The man gave Trustwave's team no-holds barred permission to try and snatch his data, a so-called "Red Team" test.
"We found out through Facebook who his wife was," said Jonathan Werrett, a managing consultant for Trustwave's SpiderLabs in Hong Kong. "We found out through her likes -- her public likes -- that she ran a pilates studio. We could then send a phishing email to her based around the fact that she ran a pilates studio that was hiring."
The man's wife opened an email with a video demonstration of the bogus job candidate conducting a class. The malicious attachment infected her computer with malware, which gave Trustwave's analysts access, known as a spear-phishing attack.
The computer she was using was a hand-me-down from her husband. The passwords he wished to protect were in the Apple computer's keychain, so the hacking exercise "turned out to be a lot easier than we otherwise expected," Werrett said.
Mining small details from Facebook has become even easier with Graph Search, the site's new search engine that returns personalized results from natural-language queries. Graph Search granularly mines Facebook's vast user data: where people have visited, what they like and if they share those same preferences with their friends.
Graph Search immediately prompted warnings from security experts, who said its powerful data aggregation abilities could make people uncomfortable even though the exposed data is public.
For penetration testers as well as bad guy hackers, Facebook is invaluable for spear-phising attacks. But Werrett and his colleague, SpiderLabs security analyst Keith Lee in Singapore, wanted an automated way to quickly amass information using Graph Search.
So Lee wrote "FBStalker," a Python script he and Werrett debuted Thursday at the Hack in the Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur. In its current form, FBStalker runs in the Chrome browser on OS X, entering queries into Facebook's Graph Search and pulling data. They used FBStalker in the attack against the man in Hong Kong.
Even if a person's profile is locked down to strangers, their friends' open profiles can be examined, giving an indication, for example, who the person may be close with. FBStalker uses Graph Search to find photos in which two people are tagged in, comments on profiles and more.
An analyst could do that by manually using Graph Search, but it would require going through hundreds of pages of comments, Timelines and photos, Werrett said.
"It's basically not feasible for a human to go to the depths that FBStalker script does," he said.
In a slide presentation, Werrett and Lee showed how FBStalker collected data on Joe Sullivan, the company's chief security officer.
FBStalker showed places where Sullivan had been and infer who some of his friends are based on pages he had liked and commented on. Some of the information collected by FBStalker is plainly visible on Sullivan's page, but his friends list is not visible to outsiders.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, walks to a GOP meeting Tuesday.
Evan Vucci/AP
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, walks to a GOP meeting Tuesday.
Evan Vucci/AP
Day 15 of the government shutdown started with as much promise as any recently: There was a bipartisan proposal by Senate leaders to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
But any hopes were quickly dashed when leaders of the Republican-controlled House said they would offer a competing proposal because of their dissatisfaction with the Senate effort.
The Senate's Bipartisan Proposal
The Senate agreement between Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., came after weekend negotiations.
It would reopen the government until Jan. 15, 2014, and extend the debt ceiling until February. Among its provisions, it would require income verification for individuals and families seeking subsidies in health care exchanges through the Affordable Care Act.
The House Responds
That Senate agreement was viewed as weak tea by House Republicans, however, particularly those affiliated with the Tea Party: They wanted more to show for the political hits they've taken in the fiscal fights. Yet it was clear early Tuesday they weren't sure what they wanted.
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters: "Our leadership team met with our members today trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that would continue to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare. There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. There have been no decisions about what exactly we will do."
Eventually, House Republicans coalesced around a proposal to reopen the government and raise the debt limit with some Obamacare-related features to which Democrats hotly objected.
For instance, it would ban members of Congress and the White House staff from receiving the same employer-paid tax subsidies for health insurance received by other U.S. employees. And it would stop a fix in the Senate proposal meant to placate unions whose members must pay a fee under the new health care law.
Perhaps most objectionable to many, and not just Democrats, was a provision in the proposal that would limit the power President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew would have to take extraordinary measures to prevent a future default. In recent months, the Treasury has taken such financial steps to remain under the debt ceiling.
"Extremist Republicans in the House of Representatives are attempting to torpedo the Senate's bipartisan progress with a bill that can't pass the Senate ... and won't pass the Senate," said Reid.
It wasn't just Democrats who opposed the House proposal. The conservative advocacy organization, the Heritage Action for America, said it would score the proposal as a "key vote," thus dinging the conservative credentials of any Republican who didn't vote "no."
House leadership had scheduled a Tuesday evening vote on its proposal, despite the fact that it had no chance of passing in the Senate. After it became clear it also had no chance of passing in the House following Heritage's grenade, it appeared to be another instance of sound and fury in the House, signifying nothing.
Obama Meets Democratic Leadership
President Obama met with House Democratic leaders at the White House Tuesday afternoon. Following the meeting, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the House minority leader, struck an optimistic tone. Vaguely echoing something Winston Churchill once said of Americans, she said: "I have confidence, and I'm optimistic, because I believe that at the end of the day, they will do the right thing even if they have to have a — do contortions to get to that place. That's unfortunate, because it doesn't inspire confidence, but if that's how they have to get there, that's a path."
Wall Street Sounds An Alarm
Pelosi's optimism wasn't universally shared. The Wall Street credit rating service, Fitch Ratings, placed the U.S.'s AAA rating on a negative watch because of the debt ceiling uncertainty.
(Reuters) - Former Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Foley, who spent 30 years in Congress before a conservative mood shift made him one of the few speakers ever defeated for re-election, died on Friday at age 84, his wife said.
Foley, the son of a judge and a native of Spokane, Washington, passed away at his home in Washington, D.C., of complications from a stroke, his wife Heather Foley said in an email.
Foley was first elected to Congress in 1964 from eastern Washington state as part of the Democratic landslide behind President Lyndon Johnson, ousting an 11-term Republican incumbent.
He worked his way up from chairman of the Agriculture Committee to Democratic whip, the No. 3 spot in the House, in 1981 and then to party leader in 1986. When U.S. Representative Jim Wright of Texas stepped down as speaker in 1989 in the midst of an ethics scandal, Foley was elevated to the top job.
Washington state Democratic Governor Jay Inslee on Friday called Foley "a giant at a time when bipartisan cooperation for the good of the country was the norm, not the exception."
"A true statesman knows how to unite people around their mutual, shared interests, while still respecting the differences among individuals," Inslee said in a statement. "That's the example Tom set, and it's something all public servants should strive to emulate."
Foley's district had long been conservative but it kept sending him back. By the 1990s, however, the largely rural district had become increasingly conservative and many voters were upset with his support of gun control legislation.
Foley lost his congressional re-election campaign in 1994 during the so-called Republican Revolution led by then-U.S. Representative Newt Gingrich, who was elevated to the position of House speaker after his resurgent party won majorities in the House and the Senate.
In the mid-term election, Foley became the first speaker to be voted out of office since Republican William Pennington of New Jersey in 1860. His Republican opponent, political novice George Nethercutt, ran on a platform of limiting terms to three but when his third term expired he decided to stay in the House for four more years.
After Foley left Congress, President Bill Clinton rewarded his long Democratic work by naming him ambassador to Japan, where he served from 1997 to 2001.
Before his political career, Foley was a lawyer who worked in the Spokane County prosecutor's office and for the Washington state attorney general. He went to Washington, D.C, as a U.S. Senate staffer. From there he ran for Congress in 1964.
Silver-haired and standing 6 feet and 3 inches tall, Foley had a ready smile and a smooth speaking style well suited to television.
His political viewpoints were moderate to liberal. He opposed the death penalty and favored abortion rights.
As speaker, Foley was less partisan than his predecessor. But some Democrats griped they wanted a more forceful leader, especially after he was unsuccessful in getting Clinton's health care proposals through Congress.
"I think I am a little cursed with seeing the other point of view and trying to understand it," Foley once said.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Tim Dobbyn and Bernard Orr)
The United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. Headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
The United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, at U.N. Headquarters. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Just hours after winning a coveted place on the U.N. Security Council for the first time, Saudi Arabia did a stunning about-face Friday and rejected the seat, denouncing the body for failing to resolve world conflicts such as the Syrian civil war.
The unprecedented move at the United Nations appeared largely directed at Saudi Arabia's longtime ally, the United States, reflecting more than two years of frustration.
The oil giant and the world's superpower are at odds over a number of Mideast issues, including how Washington has handled some of the region's crises, particularly in Egypt and Syria. It also comes as ties between the U.S. and Iran, the Saudis' regional foe, appear to be improving somewhat.
The Saudis were displeased that the U.S. backed off threats of military strikes against Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons. In Egypt, Washington has been critical of the military after it toppled President Mohammed Morsi, while Saudi Arabia has strongly backed the coup, giving billions of dollars to the new army-backed government.
Saudi Arabia's reversal surprised U.N. diplomats and officials who had just welcomed the kingdom to a two-year term on the U.N.'s most powerful body for the first time. Several noted that the Saudis were lobbying for support right up until the vote.
Britain, Pakistan and other countries said they wanted explanations, particularly as Saudi Arabia's U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi had told reporters following Thursday's vote that his government took the election "very seriously" and saw it as "a reflection of a longstanding policy in support of moderation and in support of resolving disputes in peaceful means."
Al-Mouallimi's comments stood in sharp contrast to the strident tone of Friday's Saudi Foreign Ministry statement, which accused the Security Council of failing on multiple fronts in the Middle East — especially in ending the Syria conflict but also in failing to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and rid the region of weapons of mass destruction.
"They should have thought of that before competing for the seat," said Guatemala's U.N. Ambassador Gert Rosenthal.
Several diplomats were asking each other whether there was a split in the leadership of Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah has the final word.
The Saudi statement was especially critical of the Security Council's "inability to perform its duties" to end the 2 1/2-year conflict in Syria, saying this has enabled President Bashar Assad's regime "to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment." The Syrian regime denies using chemical weapons.
Saudi Arabia backs the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad in a war that has killed some 100,000 people since early 2011. The Saudis and other Sunni Arab governments are eager to counter their regional rival Iran, which has strongly thrown its weight behind Assad.
Assad's allies Russia and China have blocked three strongly worded Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the conflict. Still, in a rare consensus, the council passed a resolution backed by the U.S. and Russia to destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal after an Aug. 21 chemical attack.
Russia said it was "surprised" and "baffled by the reasons that the kingdom gave to explain its position" — particularly after the chemical weapons resolution.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the U.S. does not expect to always agree with its allies, and added that "we have a range of issues we work with Saudi Arabia on. That will continue."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met the Saudi ambassador on Wednesday and is scheduled to meet the foreign minister next week. The Saudis will be attending upcoming meetings on Syria where they have been "an important partner," Psaki said.
Saudi Arabia showed its displeasure last month when its foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, declined to address the General Assembly meeting. Days later, the kingdom's unease with Washington appeared to manifest when President Barack Obama spoke to Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani in a groundbreaking telephone call.
"It is hard not to think that Riyadh's decision reflects an overall cooling of the U.S.-Saudi relationship," said Boston University professor Charles Dunbar, a diplomat for four decades including posts in Afghanistan, Qatar and Yemen. "Syria and Iran would seem to be the two most prominent reasons for the downturn in relations."
Saudi Arabia is a founding member of the United Nations — joining on Oct. 24, 1945, the day the U.N. Charter was unanimously adopted in San Francisco. It kept a low profile for decades but in recent years has become much more active at the U.N., seeking and winning seats on the Human Rights Council and other bodies.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky, asked whether the Saudi rejection of the seat was unprecedented, said: "As far as we are aware, there isn't another case like it."
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters he had not received any official notification about the Saudi rejection, and said member states are holding discussions on how to deal with the Saudi move. There was speculation about whether they might recant, but several diplomats said they doubt it after such a dramatic announcement.
"We think that Saudi Arabia would have brought a very positive contribution to the Security Council but we also understand the frustration of Saudi Arabia," French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said.
The Saudis were selected by the Asia group for an Arab seat on the council. If they do officially give up the seat, the group would then need to select a new candidate — or candidates — for approval by the 193-member General Assembly.
___
Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP correspondents Abdullah al-Shihri in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
Next-generation gene sequencing can identify invasive carp species in Chicago area waterways
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
17-Oct-2013
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Contact: Wen-Tso Liu wtliu@illinois.edu 217-333-8442 University of Illinois College of Engineering
A project to map the microbes present in the digestive systems of fish species holds promise for monitoring the presence of Asian carp in Chicago area waterways and ultimately preventing their spread, according to a study published in Nature's ISME Journal. The work, funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, is being conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Asian carp is a term used to refer to several invasive fish species including silver, bighead and black carp. Bighead carp and silver carp have already invaded much of the Mississippi River basin, where they compete for food with native species and dominate aquatic communities. Bighead carp and silver carp are considered one of the most severe aquatic invasive species threats facing the Great Lakes today, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee (ACRCC). The ACRCC is coordinating the efforts of federal, state, local and private resource management agencies to develop an Asian carp control program. Efforts to control the fish include research to understand their physiology and behavior and how they differ from that of native species, with an eye toward developing effective monitoring and management systems.
Gut microbiotathe microbial communities present in the digestive tracts of living thingsare unique, according to Wen-Tso Liu, co-author of the study and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois. For that reason, careful analysis of fish gut microbiota can reveal host-specific biomarkers shed in fish feces that indicate the presence of a specific species, promising the development of precise monitoring systems. Since fish feces are plentiful in waterways, monitoring could be easier than with techniques that have focused on detecting the DNA of the targeted species in sloughed-off skin tissue, Liu says.
The researchers used a next-generation gene sequencing technology called 16S pyrosequencing, which focuses on the 16S rRNA gene sequences, to analyze the gut microbiota of the invasive silver carp and the native gizzard shad. They successfully discovered potential biomarkers for silver carp and are working to refine them, Liu says.
In addition, the research illuminated some important similarities and differences in the species. For example, he says, gizzard shad harbor microbial communities that are 10 times more diverse than that of silver carp, showing that their digestive processes are significantly more complicated. The researchers also discovered a common food-source microbe, which proves that the fish compete for the same food.
"This is why invasive species can be dangerous," he says. "They can eat the same food, and if the invasive species consumes more food, then the native species can be out-competed and their population will start to decline, leading to ecological disaster."
On the strength of these findings, the researchers are beginning an extensive project to confirm their findings in the fish species in the Chicago Riverapproximately 50 different onesin order to map their gut microbiota and develop biomarkers for each species. The results will lead to a precise monitoring methodology, but the benefits will likely extend further, Liu says.
"There is a lot more beyond just monitoring," Liu says. "We will also learn more about the diversity of fish, their diets, how their diets are related to their gut microbiota and how they metabolize inside the gut."
###
The scientific article, "Fish gut microbiota analysis differentiates physiology and behavior of invasive Asian carp and indigenous American fish," by Lin Ye, Jon Amberg, Duane Chapman, Mark Gaikowski, and Wen-Tso Liu, is available on the ISME Journal website.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Next-generation gene sequencing can identify invasive carp species in Chicago area waterways
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
17-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Wen-Tso Liu wtliu@illinois.edu 217-333-8442 University of Illinois College of Engineering
A project to map the microbes present in the digestive systems of fish species holds promise for monitoring the presence of Asian carp in Chicago area waterways and ultimately preventing their spread, according to a study published in Nature's ISME Journal. The work, funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, is being conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Asian carp is a term used to refer to several invasive fish species including silver, bighead and black carp. Bighead carp and silver carp have already invaded much of the Mississippi River basin, where they compete for food with native species and dominate aquatic communities. Bighead carp and silver carp are considered one of the most severe aquatic invasive species threats facing the Great Lakes today, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee (ACRCC). The ACRCC is coordinating the efforts of federal, state, local and private resource management agencies to develop an Asian carp control program. Efforts to control the fish include research to understand their physiology and behavior and how they differ from that of native species, with an eye toward developing effective monitoring and management systems.
Gut microbiotathe microbial communities present in the digestive tracts of living thingsare unique, according to Wen-Tso Liu, co-author of the study and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois. For that reason, careful analysis of fish gut microbiota can reveal host-specific biomarkers shed in fish feces that indicate the presence of a specific species, promising the development of precise monitoring systems. Since fish feces are plentiful in waterways, monitoring could be easier than with techniques that have focused on detecting the DNA of the targeted species in sloughed-off skin tissue, Liu says.
The researchers used a next-generation gene sequencing technology called 16S pyrosequencing, which focuses on the 16S rRNA gene sequences, to analyze the gut microbiota of the invasive silver carp and the native gizzard shad. They successfully discovered potential biomarkers for silver carp and are working to refine them, Liu says.
In addition, the research illuminated some important similarities and differences in the species. For example, he says, gizzard shad harbor microbial communities that are 10 times more diverse than that of silver carp, showing that their digestive processes are significantly more complicated. The researchers also discovered a common food-source microbe, which proves that the fish compete for the same food.
"This is why invasive species can be dangerous," he says. "They can eat the same food, and if the invasive species consumes more food, then the native species can be out-competed and their population will start to decline, leading to ecological disaster."
On the strength of these findings, the researchers are beginning an extensive project to confirm their findings in the fish species in the Chicago Riverapproximately 50 different onesin order to map their gut microbiota and develop biomarkers for each species. The results will lead to a precise monitoring methodology, but the benefits will likely extend further, Liu says.
"There is a lot more beyond just monitoring," Liu says. "We will also learn more about the diversity of fish, their diets, how their diets are related to their gut microbiota and how they metabolize inside the gut."
###
The scientific article, "Fish gut microbiota analysis differentiates physiology and behavior of invasive Asian carp and indigenous American fish," by Lin Ye, Jon Amberg, Duane Chapman, Mark Gaikowski, and Wen-Tso Liu, is available on the ISME Journal website.
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| E-mail
| Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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