UPDATED! 11 April 2023 - H2O and USB

 

This post originally appeared on 19 July 2011

1. Vitamin Water is offering USB ports to charge mobile devices in bus shelters in various US cities.
2. This is in support of their "ad positioning" as an alternative energy source.
3. There is supposed to be nothing but electrical power being supplied by these ports.

While the pseudo-altruism of free electricity is somewhat appealing, and perhaps borderline clever as well, it is quite apparent that there is more here than meets the eye. It would be nearly incredible if for every USB session initiated by electron-hungry consumers, there weren't some kind of Trojan, Worm, or Virus being initiated and/or installed.
As we've known for most of recorded history, tanstaafl - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch - and there ain't no such thing as a free charge either.

Just who is behind the applications being installed, and to whom will data be delivered? We'll have updates here as soon as more data becomes available.

Posted by Listener 43

--- UPDATE ---

It appears that our top-notch federal are finally catching up with us here at this site.

This link will take you to a legacy media site's coverage of this new discovery. 

1. This is not the same threat we identified here a dozen years ago.
2. This does show that we've been out in front of the pack, identifying threats to your security.
3. This also raises the question, "Has the FBI finished slurping your data (or injecting malware), and now they want to make sure no one else does it to you?" If not, why this warning?

As always, we'll look for further developments in this story, and updates will be posted here as soon as we have more information.

 Posted by Listener 43 (with thanks to Gyro Gearloose for his comments on the original post)

 

Remember - I Told You So!

Imagine an Amerika where the FBI keeps tabs on every citizen's online activities - search, browsing, facebook, whatever. Oh, if you can imagine it, maybe you should be working at the FBI because that's just what those "Justice" Department bureaucrats are dreaming of right now.

Check out this link to see what responsible journalists are saying about this topic before you blow me off as a simple ranting blog troll who makes up stuff to complain about just to be able to have something to post on his blog because that's not who I am, and it's not who I ever want to be.

http://mashable.com/2012/01/26/fbi-social-media-monitoring/
I guess that if we ever got to the place where there was nothing to complain about, I might start making things up so I could keep blogging, but I can't see that happening anytime soon, so you might as well just realize that I'm not just blowing smoke up anybody's short or whatever that expression is.

What possible reason or justification could there be for this kind of thing? Maybe they're just sore at the Supreme Court for saying they need warrants to do their fancy GPS stuff to folks, so they're looking for another way to keep track of everyone and everyone. It's hard to understand how those minds work - at least for a normal guy like me anyway.

It's time to complain to the Justice Department - and to your Representative and Senators. Don't let them just do whatever they want to anyone they don't like. The facebook timeline you protect may be your own.


Posted by Lewis Cannon

Related Posts:
The FBI Wants Your Kids' Vitals

The FBI Wants Your Kids' Vitals

First off, what the hell is wrong with that Doe family, anyway? They're always getting lost or killed or arrested - just like the kids on this sample from the FBI.




















When I saw that the FBI has finally come up with an app to help parents find their missing children, I thought, "What could go wrong here? The FBI is a trustworthy, helpful, friendly ...." Then I slapped myself.

Sure, there's probably a good reason to keep some basic information on your kids in your phone, just in case, but aren't you worried that the FBI will be collecting all this data and keeping it for future reference?

Oh, don't worry about that - they say they're not collecting anything until you send it to them.
Sure, and Santa doesn't check his list twice either.

What's the dead giveaway? They didn't bother to password protect the app. If you're dumb enough to put sensitive personal data about your kids in a wide-open app on your phone that Steve Jobs tracks daily, as does every hacker in the world, including the ones working for the FBI, then maybe you're dumb enough that you're going to lose your kids at the park and you'll need this app anyway, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen, and it's just another way the FBI is filling their databases with not-really-voluntary data that they can reasonably claim they have some reason to think about collecting in case some of these kids get kidnapped, since that's automatically a federal case.

Posted by Lewis Cannon

Related Posts:
They Know What's Good For Us?!?!?
Nosy Eurocrats
Another Agency to Police the Internet?

Turf Wars

1. Recently we posted here about the FBI wreaking havoc by seizing servers from a hosting company.
2. We also commented that the FBI was likely a greater threat to the internet than was LulzSec.
3. LulzSec has disbanded, having caused all the trouble they thought they could without getting caught.
4. The FBI doesn't take competition lightly - they were behind the arrest of the autistic chat host in England, and now they've raided the home of a woman in Iowa.
5. Interestingly, they were looking to have her help infiltrate LulzSec using the information she had on the group which was harvested from LulzSec leaks and Google searches!

The lesson is clear, don't get the FBI mad at you or they'll round up people whom they think know more than they do and make them help get you.

Posted by Procrustes 17

FBI (Feds Bothering the Internet)

1. The FBI took a web server based on a legal warrant.
2. Somehow the FBI were unable to determine which server contained the data covered by their warrant.
3. The FBI took a bunch of other servers without a warrant.
4. The sites and businesses hosted on those servers are offline until backups can be activated or the servers are returned.

In spite of the fact that LulzSec is a clear threat to normal folks on the internet, it appears that the FBI may be a bigger threat overall.

Posted by Procrustes 17

It's all there in the names and numbers

1. The FBI's authorization to go through any garbage they want to examine - without a warrant - was tucked away in section 802, paragraph 11, subsection N of the Patriot Act reauthorization (this is a true fact).
2. Echelon is the project monitoring everything everyone says via email, twitter, facebook, etc.
3. (It's also the way Bill Gates knows who to send money for forwarding his emails, and how Macy's will track you down for forwarding their Marshall Field's cookie recipe.)
4. IPv6 will be giving specificity to who and where all messaging originates.
5. The latest WiFi is 802.11n - does that number sound familiar?

Wonder why some of us only use cables to connect, and are still on IPv4?
Ever wonder what happened to IPv5?

Exactly. It's all there in the names and numbers, if you'll just look. There is no evidence to the contrary, and if there were, that would be a bit suspicious.

Posted by Listener 43