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Mayor Libby Schaaf, Chief LeRonne Armstrong and members of OPDs command staff appeared before federal Judge William Orrick on Wednesday afternoon, the first hearing after the release of an outside law firms investigation into last years Instagram scandal.

Orrick commended OPD leadership for making strides to achieve court-mandated reforms during a challenging and violent year that included 134 homicides, the highest number in over a decade. Despite the progress, Orrick said the police department is not yet ready to begin a transition period that would result in the conclusion of the nearly two decade long federal court oversight.

The reform effort, known as the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, dates back to 2003 and stems from a civil rights lawsuit alleging a group of officers known as the Riders beat and planted drugs on West Oakland residents. Under the settlements terms, the police department was placed under the supervision of a federal judge and independent monitor. The oversight was later expanded to include a compliance director. Robert Warshaw, a retired Rochester, N.Y. police chief, currently serves as both monitor and compliance director and reports to Judge Orrick.

The Oaklandside listened in on Wednesdays hearing held via Zoom. Here are some of the major takeaways.

Of the 52 tasks identified in the NSA, OPD remains out of full compliance with five tasks related to how the department investigates use of force by officers, whether discipline is consistently and fairly applied against OPD employees who violate city rules, how OPD collects and uses data to reduce racial disparities in traffic stops, whether internal affairs investigations are finished within a required timeframe, and whether OPD is properly handling internal affairs complaints.

Orrick also singled out ongoing failures of officers to activate their body-worn cameras. A November report issued by monitor Warshaw found 15 instances, in a review of 69 use of force cases, where officers did not properly activate their body-worn cameras, including failures to activate, delays in activation, and other problems.

The judge was particularly concerned with the findings of an outside law firm, which investigated an Instagram account that spread anti police reform, misogynist, and racist content which was viewed by current OPD officers. San Francisco-based law firm Clarence Dyer & Cohen LLP in a 23-page report concluded that the Oakland Police Department, at all levels, took much too long to recognize the bigoted and corrosive nature of the Instagram posts. The account @crimereductionteam was run by an Oakalnd police officer who was fired for a 2018 fatal police shooting. In all, nine officers were disciplined related to the internal affairs case.

The Instagram investigation spotlighted a number of troubling problems. The one that concerns me the most was the failure of leadership of the department to recognize the corrosive impact of that account and how it undermined everything that the NSA was intended to accomplish, Orrick said.

Mayor Schaaf did not hold back when addressing the social media account. Schaaf said the accounts content literally vomited on all the values Oakland holds dear.

Everyone on this call felt the heat of my wrath when that ungodly, embarrassing, horrific Instagram account was discovered, Schaaf told the judge. I appreciated that no one made excuses even though it was a chaotic time in our city.

The outside investigators recommended that OPD create a social media policy and rules for using personal devices (phones, tablets, etc.) for work. The report also advised the city to build on the citys existing anti-discrimination policy. Orrick called on OPD to swiftly implement those recommendations.

Orrick commended OPD for conducting comprehensive use of force investigations and reducing racial disparities in traffic stops. The total number of stops carried out by OPD officers has decreased dramatically over the past several years. However, Black people continue to be stopped at higher rates than other racial groups. Recently, stops of Latinos increased by 5%.

The judge also praised Armstrong and the OPD command staff for the diversity of police recruits in recent academies, though he said he would like to see more women in the training programs.

OPD is justified to be very proud of these accomplishments, which are core to the NSA, Orrick said. I recognize that given the detail in the NSA, its hard to ensure each part is always in compliance.

Among the 39 trainees in the departments 187th Police Academy, which just got underway, are 7 women and 32 men. According to OPD, 12 are Oakland residents and 15 are Hispanic, 11 Black, 4 Asian, 3 white, and 6 identify as some other racial group, making it one of the most diverse academies in OPDs history.

The progress came despite a challenging two years combating violent crime on city streets amid a global pandemic. Oakland recorded 109 homicides in 2020 and 134 in 2021, the highest number of killings since 2006. Mayor Schaaf told Orrick that OPDs ranks also dropped to its lowest number in a decade: 676.

While Orrick acknowledged the challenging times he said, I dont see any of that as excuses or reasons to set aside the NSA or the prior orders of the court.

Attorneys Jim Chanin and John Burris, who represent the mostly Black Oakland residents whose lawsuit led to the NSA, had asked the court last year to consider winding down the oversight program, given the accomplishments made under Armstrong. But the Instagram case, the attorneys wrote in a court brief filed in December, showed there are still officers who are hostile to reform.

I think the fact that we had a scandal like this in 2021 over 20 years after this case started is depressing, Chanin told the court. I sometimes wonder if (an Oaklandside reporter) had not discovered the memes, if they would ever have become public. I wonder why this case wasnt referred to internal affairs when nearly every member of OPD had been tipped off via email.

Chanin and Burris said in order to begin the one-year sustainability periodafter showing it can maintain compliance with all 52 tasks for a year the NSA can be endedthe department needs to finalize its risk management and social media policies, in addition to completing the remaining tasks. The attorneys would like to see the sustainability period begin sometime this year.

The current command staff has an opportunity to push OPD over the goal line and attain compliance with the NSA, the attorneys wrote in their court brief. If they succeed, and the Department succeeds, the personnel who are responsible for this success will be remembered long after the NSA is over. OPD should seize this opportunity to be remembered by current and future residents of Oakland as having accomplished something that has eluded a long line of its predecessors.

The next hearing before Orrick is scheduled for late April. The judge asked that OPD, the city and the plaintiff attorneys come prepared to address cultural issues within the department and what they think the courts oversight should be moving forward.

Im going to assume that all of the structures of the NSA will have been in place and complied with, said Orrick. I want to know how the court can be helpful to assure the permanence of the impressive accomplishments made thus far and the ultimate substantial compliance with the NSA.

Continued here:
Federal judge: OPD Instagram case 'spotlighted a number of troubling problems' - The Oaklandside

Major government security agencies around the world have issued a joint advisory on the Apache Log4j vulnerability that offers technical details, mitigations and resources on what top security officials are calling one of the most severe vulnerabilities ever discovered.

The agencies taking the lead in the United States include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI. Other nations involved include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

The joint advisory is a response to the active, worldwide exploitationby numerous threat actors including two ransomware groups thus far of vulnerabilities foundinthewidely-used Java-based logging package Log4j. The security world has been on edge since Log4j was first reported publicly last week. The first attack on a government agency was sustained earlier this week by the Ministry of Defense in Belgium when its email servers went down.

Log4j vulnerabilities present a severe and ongoing threat to organizations and governments around the world, said CISA Director Jen Easterly. We implore all entities to take immediate action to implement the latest mitigation guidance to protect their networks. CISA is working shoulder-to-shoulder with our interagency, private sector, and international partners to understand the severe risks associated with Log4j vulnerabilities and provide actionable information for all organizations to promptly implement appropriate mitigations.

FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran, urged any organization impacted by the Log4j vulnerability to apply all the mitigations recommended by CISA and visit fbi.gov/log4j to report details of any suspected compromises.

CISAhas created a dedicatedLog4j webpageto offer an authoritative, up-to-date resource withmitigation guidance andresources for network defenders, as well as a community-sourcedGitHubrepositoryof affected devices and services.Organizational leaders should also review the blog post by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre: Log4j vulnerability: what should boards be asking?, for information on Log4Shells possible impact on their organization as well as response recommendations.

CISA today also notified the industry in a tweet about #HackDHS, Homeland Securitys expanded bug bounty program to find and patch Log4j-related vulnerabilities in DHS systems. CISA Director Jen Easterly said the hacker community plays a strong role in keeping the government safe, and looks forward to working more closely.

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CISA, FBI and NSA issue joint advisory on Log4j with international security agencies - SC Magazine

Following the incident, the BJP workers raised slogans outside the Lohamandi Police station, demanding the arrest of all accused. (Image: India Today)

Ten people have been arrested in connection with an attack on Seva Bharati office in Agras Motikunj on Sunday night. The police are also trying to identify other miscreants who were reportedly involved in the attack.

The incident took place on December 26 when some youths, who were reportedly under the influence of alcohol, created a ruckus near the Seva Bharati office in Agra. When they were asked to stop, the youths started pelting stones at the office.

The police reached the spot soon after getting information about the incident and a case was registered.

ALSO READ: Chandigarh: Auto driver throws stones at cop after being pulled up over parking

BJP MLA Yogendra Upadhyay, along with supporters, also reached the spot and demanded the arrest of the youths involved. The BJP workers created a ruckus for hours at the Lohamandi Police station. They raised slogans and demanded the arrest of all accused.

Senior Superintendent of Police Sudhir Kumar Singh pacified the matter and assured that strict action would be taken.

Speaking to India Today, Sudhir Kumar Singh said that action is being taken against the accused under the Gangster Act and National Security Act (NSA). He said that five workers, including office in-charge Shivam, were injured in an attack by antisocial elements on the Seva Bharati office in Moti Kunj last night, following which a case was registered against two known and 40-50 unidentified assailants.

Shivam and Vikas, who sustained injuries in the attack, reside in the Seva Bharati office. Both are residents of Fatehabad.

Sami Aghai, president of the Bharatiya Muslim Development Council, said that no culprit should be spared, but innocents should not be harassed. Aghai claimed that some people are unnecessarily trying to pollute the environment and appealed to the administrative officers to keep an eye on such elements and take strict action.

ALSO READ: Uttar Pradesh: Body found in Kanpur, police suspect doctor accused of killing wife, kids killed self

Click here for IndiaToday.ins complete coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Agra: 10 held in connection with attack on Seva Bharati office; NSA invoked against accused - India Today

Cybersecurity researchers have offered a detailed glimpse into a system called DoubleFeature that's dedicated to logging the different stages of post-exploitation stemming from the deployment of DanderSpritz, a full-featured malware framework used by the Equation Group.

DanderSpritz came to light on April 14, 2017, when a hacking group known as the Shadow Brokers leaked the exploit tool, among others, under a dispatch titled "Lost in Translation." Also included in the leaks was EternalBlue, a cyberattack exploit developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that enabled threat actors to carry out the NotPetya ransomware attack on unpatched Windows computers.

The tool is a modular, stealthy, and fully functional framework that relies on dozens of plugins for post-exploitation activities on Windows and Linux hosts. DoubleFeature is one among them, which functions as a "diagnostic tool for victim machines carrying DanderSpritz," researchers from Check Point said in a new report published Monday.

"DoubleFeature could be used as a sort of Rosetta Stone for better understanding DanderSpritz modules, and systems compromised by them," the Israeli cybersecurity firm added. "It's an incident response team's pipe dream."

Designed to maintain a log of the types of tools that could be deployed on a target machine, DoubleFeature is a Python-based dashboard that also doubles up as a reporting utility to exfiltrate the logging information from the infected machine to an attacker-controlled server. The output is interpreted using a specialized executable named "DoubleFeatureReader.exe."

Some of the plugins monitored by DoubleFeature include remote access tools called UnitedRake (aka EquationDrug) and PeddleCheap, a stealthy data exfiltration backdoor dubbed StraitBizarre, an espionage platform called KillSuit (aka GrayFish), a persistence toolset named DiveBar, a covert network access driver called FlewAvenue, and a validator implant named MistyVeal that verifies if the compromised system is indeed an authentic victim machine and not a research environment.

"Sometimes, the world of high-tier APT tools and the world of ordinary malware can seem like two parallel universes," the researchers said. "Nation-state actors tend to [maintain] clandestine, gigantic codebases, sporting a huge gamut of features that have been cultivated over decades due to practical need. It turns out we too are still slowly chewing on the 4-year-old leak that revealed DanderSpritz to us, and gaining new insights."

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Experts Detail Logging Tool of DanderSpritz Framework Used by Equation Group Hackers - The Hacker News

The new frontiers of war is civil society, which can be manipulated to hurt a nations interests, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval said at the passing out parade of the 73rd batch of IPS probationers at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVP NPA) in Hyderabad on 12 November.

Doval was the chief guest at the Dikshant Parade, which is the culmination of the 46-week long phase-1 basic course training. He said:

The new frontiers of war, what you call the fourth-generation warfare, is the civil society.. [conventional] wars have ceased to become an effective instrument for achieving political or military objectives. They are too expensive or unaffordable and, at the same time, there is uncertainty about their outcome. But civil society can be subverted, suborned, divided, manipulated to hurt the interests of a nation."

The fourth generation warfare is characterised by the blurring of lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. The enemy power uses tactics of education or propaganda, building social movements, etc.

Short of a defeat, fourth generation warfare tries simply to disorganise and delegitimise the state, force it to expend resources on maintaining internal law and order, etc. It combines the elements of psychological manipulation, disinformation, cyberwarfare, using proxies like terror groups, etc.

An example of fourth generation warfare is visible in China's long-term policy of strategic containment of India. It is not only assisting Pakistan to develop and deploy nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; backing political parties and individuals in Indias neighbouring South Asian countries to undermine their relations with India, but also supporting anti-national groups in India, giving them funds, arms, etc.

Also read: Indian Lefts Fall From Grace: Those Who Criticised Global Capitalism Are Now Taking Orders From Foreign Masters

NSA To IPS Probationers

The NSA, who graduated from the National Police Academy 52 years ago, gave his wisdom to the young probationers. Stating that people are the most important, Doval told the future IPS officers, "You are there to see they stand fully protected.

He asked the young probationers to develop a national perspective. You are for India and India is for you. Every other identity gets subsumed to this Indian identity, he was quoted as saying by IE.

The service of people is the greatest service, not only from the point of view of nation-building but also from the point of national security, he told the new batch of officers, and asked them to not only think of reforms to avoid repeating mistakes of the past but also be transformative to look at future challenges and find solutions in advance.

He also told the IPS probationers that success of democracy depends on the enforcement of laws:

Quintessence of democracy does not lie in the ballot box. It lies in the laws which are made by the people who are elected through these ballot boxes. You are the ones who are the enforcers of the law Laws are only as good as they are executed and implemented and the service that people can get out of it.. people cannot feel safe and secure where law enforcers are weak, corrupt, and partisan."

No nation can be built where the rule of law has failed, he added.

He reminded them that their responsibility includes not only the safety and security of 130 crore human beings but also the 32 lakh square kilometres of land area across the country.

He asked them to be trained and prepared for border management as well as challenges of highly specialised investigations in agencies like the NIA or CBI. He said that some of the officers will work for intelligence units within or outside the country, and they will have the responsibility to see that governments can make informed decisions and that these decisions are enforced in the countrys best interests.

He said that the officers today need to excel in the challenges of technology as a frontier. Without your success, the nation cannot succeed. If internal security fails, no country can be great. If the people are not safe and secure, they cannot rise to their potential, and probably, the country can never grow, he said.

Also read: Outrage Over IPS Officer Seeking Ban On NGOs Foreign Funding: CPMs Prakash Karat Had Proposed The Same In 1984

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What NSA Ajit Doval Recently Said About New Forms Of Warfare - Swarajya