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PrintWednesday 30th August, 2017By Edna A. Quansah, GNA Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Directo

By Edna A. Quansah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.

Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Director of Shalina Health Care Ghana Mr. AmritPal Singh said it was part of his outfits Corporate Social Responsibility tosupport this great event, which is geared towards unearthing potential athletesin the country.

Mr Singh encouraged the athletes tocompete in line with the rules of the game and admonished them to becompetitive and bring their best in any discipline they compete in. This is acompetition which will bring the youth in this country together. A healthy bodyis a healthy mind that is why we associate ourselves with this event tosponsor.

Meanwhile, the NSA has also receiveddonations from Stanbic Bank and Fero Phones with GH10,000.00 and 30 pieces ofphones respectively to support the National Sports Festival.

The donated will be given tooutstanding athletes who will perform well in the various disciplines.

The Director General of the NSA Mr.Robert Sarfo Mensah thanked the sponsors for their immense contributionstowards the event, adding that, his doors are still opened for more corporateentities to come on board to support.

He said preparations for the sportsfestival are almost complete in terms of accommodation, feeding andtransportation.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports hasgiven USD 130,000 towards the event and other sponsors include Goil, GoldenBean Hotel, Angel Group of Companies, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly andSoccerbet have also donated towards the games.

GNA

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Shalina Healthcare donates products plus GH15000.00 to NSA - Ghana News Agency

A team of researchers from Positive Technologies discovered an undocumented configuration setting, designed for use by government agencies, to disable Intel Management Engine 11. Now you too can partake in this government privilege to inactivate Intels proprietary CPU master controller.

Since 2008, Intels chipsets have contained a separate always-on Management Engine computer that could not be disabled. The EFF described Intel ME as a largely undocumented master controller for your CPU: it works with system firmware during boot and has direct access to system memory, the screen, keyboard and network.

Back in June 2016, hardware hacker Damien Zammit warned, Recent Intel x86 processors implement a secret, powerful control mechanism that runs on a separate chip that no one is allowed to audit or examine. When these are eventually compromised, they'll expose all affected systems to nearly unkillable, undetectable rootkit attacks.

Despite many people with x86 computers trying, no one could disable ME. The closest successful attempt was likely the me-cleaner project.

The purpose of ME, according to Intel, is to allow businesses to remotely manage computers via Active Management Technology (AMT). Yet plenty of experts have called ME a very powerful backdoor, an idea that picked up steam after a critical vulnerability was revealed in May.

Intel refuted those backdoor accusations, saying, Intel does not put backdoors in its products nor do our products give Intel control or access to computing systems without the explicit permission of the end user. In short, Intel does not participate in efforts to decrease security in technology.

Here comes the good news. As Positive Technologies researchers Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy poked into the firmware, they discovered an undocumented HAP field. HAP, which stands for the High Assurance Platform (pdf) program, was developed by the NSA. The framework was for the development of the next generation of secure computing platforms.

The researchers discovered an undocumented field called reserve-hap and that HAP could be set to 1 for true. Apparently, the NSA wanted to ensure the agency could close off any possible security risk by disabling Intel ME. The researchers wrote, We believe that this mechanism is designed to meet a typical requirement of government agencies, which want to reduce the possibility of side-channel leaks.

When told about the research, Intel told Positive Technologies:

In response to requests from customers with specialized requirements, we sometimes explore the modification or disabling of certain features. In this case, the modifications were made at the request of equipment manufacturers in support of their customers evaluation of the U.S. governments High Assurance Platform program. These modifications underwent a limited validation cycle and are not an officially supported configuration.

If you want to disable Intel ME, you should first read the in-depth technical explanation about the researchers finding an undocumented PCH strap that can be used to switch on a special mode disabling the main Intel ME functionality at an early stage. Positive Technologies also made its Intel ME 11.x firmware image unpacker utility available on GitHub. Use at your own risk; the methods to disable Intel ME were described as risky and may damage or destroy your computer.

Read more here:
Now you, too, can disable Intel ME 'backdoor' thanks to the NSA - CSO Online

Attorneys for National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner have asked a court to suppress the statements she made to investigators prior to being taken into custody and charged with leaking classified intelligence.

Ms. Winners legal team wrote in a motion filed Tuesday that their client wasnt read her Miranda rights prior to being questioned by authorities inside her home June 3 and that her statements from then shouldnt be used as evidence.

Winner was never told she was free to leave, nor was she advised as to her arrest status; indeed, when she specifically asked whether she was under arrest, the agents told her they did not know the answer to that yet, her attorneys wrote.

The filing also requests a hearing be scheduled regarding the request.

Ms. Winner, 25, is accused of leaking a classified document to the website The Intercept detailing Russias involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

According to the federal complaint filed against her, Ms. Winner printed and improperly removed classified intelligence reporting in early May obtained on the job at Pluribus International Corporation, an NSA contractor near Augusta, Georgia.

Federal investigators learned about the leak after The Intercepts reporters contacted the government May 30 prior to publication. Investigators subsequently traced the leak to Ms. Winner and questioned her at her Augusta home on June 3, according to charging documents.

During that conversation, Winner admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue, the government argued. Winner further admitted removing the classified intelligence reporting from her office space, retaining it and mailing it from Augusta, Georgia, to the news outlet, which she knew was not authorized to receive or possess the documents.

Winner further acknowledged that she was aware of the contents of the intelligence reporting and that she knew the contents of the reporting could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation, according to investigators.

Ms. Winner ultimately pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted.

A tentative start date for the governments case against Ms. Winner was established during a status hearing Wednesday for Oct. 23, a local Fox affiliate reported.

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Reality Winner, NSA contractor charged in leak case, asks court to suppress initial statement - Washington Times

PrintWednesday 30th August, 2017By EdnaA. Quansah, GNAAccra, Aug. 30, GNA - The Director General ofthe National Sports Authority (NSA) Mr. Robert Sarfo Mensah has said that hisprayers is for Egypt to lose against Uganda as they lock horns in the qualifiers of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.The Pharaohs of Egypt have amassed six pointsin Group E and top the standing after beating Congo and Ghana in their theirtwo mat

By EdnaA. Quansah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - The Director General ofthe National Sports Authority (NSA) Mr. Robert Sarfo Mensah has said that hisprayers is for Egypt to lose against Uganda as they lock horns in the qualifiers of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The Pharaohs of Egypt have amassed six pointsin Group E and top the standing after beating Congo and Ghana in their theirtwo matches played so far.

Uganda are lying second with four pointswhilst Ghana and Congo have with one point and zero respectively.

The Black Stars of Ghana will play Congo onFriday, September 1 at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi before travellingto Congo Brazzaville for the return encounter whilst Uganda hosts Egypt onThursday, August 31.

Though Egypt, the seven times Africa Championsare in a better position to qualify to the quadrennial showpiece, the NSA bosstold the GNA Sports that he is praying and fasting that Egypt slips tomorrowagainst Uganda so that our chances will be brighter.

He urged the team to concentrate on theremaining matches and do all they can to win all the remaining games.

This is the beginning of our qualification tothe World Cup. The previous matches played are over. What I want to tell theBlack Stars is that, they should do their best to win for us. They shouldforget about all the permutations and win all the matches.

They should concentrate on our remaining fourmatches and I believe that with God on our side, Egypt can slip against Uganda.In football anything can happen and thats all what we hopping for.

This years qualification is similar to whathappened in 2006 and I dont think it is beyond us. Ghanaians are counting onthem and whatever they need to do, they should do and qualify us to thetourney.

Ghana will be chasing her fourth appearance tothe competition under Coach James Kwesi Appiah who qualified the country to thelast edition in Brazil.

GNA

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I pray Egypt loses against Uganda- NSA Boss - Ghana News Agency

Researchers hack Intel's back door

A team of insecurity experts from Positive Technologies has found a way to disable the Intel Management Engine (ME) thanks to the NSA.

For those who came in late, ME is as popular with the IT community as Donald Trump is in Scotland. Most see it as a backdoor, even if Intel advertises it as a "remote PC management" solution.

For this reason, security experts have been trying for years to find a way to disable the Intel ME component, but have failed. If you disable Intel ME, the computer crashes because it runs initialisation, power management, and launch of the main processor.

However apparently there is a hidden bit inside the firmware code, which when flipped (set to "1") will disable ME after ME has done its job and booted up the main processor.

The bit is labelled "reserve_hap" and a nearby comment describes it as "High Assurance Platform (HAP) enable". High Assurance Platform (HAP) is an NSA program that describes a series of rules for running secure computing platforms.

Researchers believe Intel has added the ME-disabling bit at the behest of the NSA, which needed a method of disabling ME as a security measure for computers running in highly sensitive environments.

Follow this link:
Intel Management Engine turned over, thanks to NSA - Fudzilla