Randy Chaviano, 26, of Hialeah, Fla., was convicted by a jury in July 2009 of fatally shooting Charles Acosta, who came to his apartment to buy drugs.
Chaviano appealed his conviction to the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami. When it was discovered that hardly any transcripts of his trial proceedings existed, the court last week threw out his conviction and life sentence, and ordered that he get an entirely new chance to go before jurors.
Any traces of Chaviano’s trial all but disappeared from the Miami-Dade courthouse’s records, officials say, because the court reporter for the case, Terlesa Cowart, failed to capture the trial on paper.
Cowart, a courts spokeswoman told the Miami Herald, put the trial transcript on an internal disc instead, and then erased the data from the stenography machine’s memory disc.
She did back the disk up on her computer, but a virus on the computer later erased all of her notes. All that remained was a transcript of one pretrial hearing and the trial’s closing arguments.
“The rest is lost forever,” Chaviano’s attorney, Harvey Sepler, wrote in court documents.
For now, court stenographers in Miami-Dade are required to use machines that capture their work both on paper and the internal disc used by Cowart.
The county is currently pushing, against the wishes of stenographers, to replace the old human, paper and disk model with digital recorders instead.
The firm that employed Cowart at the time of the trial, Goldman Naccarato Patterson Vela Associates Inc., told the Herald their employee had a history of not bringing enough of the paper stenographers use to chronicle the proceedings.
Cowart has since been fired from the firm.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office apologized for the error: “The overturning of a murder conviction always means terrible pain for the victim’s family and frustration for prosecutors and police officers. Overturning a murder conviction because of a court reporter’s problem creates a brand new level of pain and frustration,” a spokesman told the Herald.
Article source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/stenographer-error-gives-convicted-florida-murderer-new-trial/
View full post on National Cyber Security » Virus/Malware/Worms
Randy Chaviano, 26, of Hialeah, Fla., was convicted by a jury in July 2009 of fatally shooting Charles Acosta, who came to his apartment to buy drugs.
Chaviano appealed his conviction to the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami. When it was discovered that hardly any transcripts of his trial proceedings existed, the court last week threw out his conviction and life sentence, and ordered that he get an entirely new chance to go before jurors.
Any traces of Chaviano’s trial all but disappeared from the Miami-Dade courthouse’s records, officials say, because the court reporter for the case, Terlesa Cowart, failed to capture the trial on paper.
Cowart, a courts spokeswoman told the Miami Herald, put the trial transcript on an internal disc instead, and then erased the data from the stenography machine’s memory disc.
She did back the disk up on her computer, but a virus on the computer later erased all of her notes. All that remained was a transcript of one pretrial hearing and the trial’s closing arguments.
“The rest is lost forever,” Chaviano’s attorney, Harvey Sepler, wrote in court documents.
For now, court stenographers in Miami-Dade are required to use machines that capture their work both on paper and the internal disc used by Cowart.
The county is currently pushing, against the wishes of stenographers, to replace the old human, paper and disk model with digital recorders instead.
The firm that employed Cowart at the time of the trial, Goldman Naccarato Patterson Vela Associates Inc., told the Herald their employee had a history of not bringing enough of the paper stenographers use to chronicle the proceedings.
Cowart has since been fired from the firm.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office apologized for the error: “The overturning of a murder conviction always means terrible pain for the victim’s family and frustration for prosecutors and police officers. Overturning a murder conviction because of a court reporter’s problem creates a brand new level of pain and frustration,” a spokesman told the Herald.
Article source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/stenographer-error-gives-convicted-florida-murderer-new-trial/
View full post on National Cyber Security » Virus/Malware/Worms
The customized Visa debit card works just like a credit card with Facebook adding more money to the account as the bearers report more bugs, tech site CNET said.
View full post on facebook hacker – Yahoo! News Search Results
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“Ben Rudolph, Microsoft’s Windows Phone ‘evangelist,’ is the brainbox behind the scheme which has adopted the hashtag ‘#droidrage’ on Twitter,” Cluley writes. “Linking followers to current news articles about Android malware, Rudolph says he will give an ‘upgrade’ to a Windows Phone to the ’5 best (worst?)’ stories about being hit by Android malware.”
“I guess it must be kind of thrilling for Microsoft – which has endorsed the “#droidrage’ campaign – to find the malware boot on the other foot for once,” Cluley writes. “Microsoft would be wise not to look too smug at the current focus on Android malware issue though – and using the issue as a promotion for Windows Phone 7 may be shortsighted. Let’s not forget, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: When even Microsoft is proclaiming to be more secure than you, you’ve got a security problem.
Android. “Open” in all the wrong ways.
You know what’s really funny is a lot of these Android settlers are Windows Sufferers, too. You know, the anti-Apple types who nevertheless strive to use the nearest Apple approximation they can find. Now these Apple haters being attacked by their pretend Mac OS vendor over their use of devices loaded with a pretend iPhone OS. What to do, what to do? If you could bake a cake made from the irony here, it’d be multi-layered and very, very sweet.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Fred Mertz" and "GetMeOnTop" for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Insecure: Malicious Android apps double in six months – December 14, 2011
Android permissions flaw allows eavesdropping, data theft, location tracking – December 2, 2011
You bank on your pretend iPhone? Are you nuts?! Android malware up 472% since July – November 16, 2011
Android security threats surge with infected ‘Angry Birds’; iPhone and iPad users unaffected – November 15, 2011
Apple’s iOS unaffected by malware as Android exploits surge 76% – August 24, 2011
McAfee: Google’s Android number one in malware – August 23, 2011
Android malware records phone calls; iPhone users unaffected – August 2, 2011
Symantec: Apple iOS offers ‘full protection,’ Google Android ‘little protection’ vs. malware attacks – June 29, 2011
Malware apps spoof Android Market to infect Android phones – June 21, 2011
Google forced to pull several malware-infested apps from Android market – June 8, 2011
Android malware sees explosive growth; even faster than with PCs – April 27, 2011
Virus-laden apps infest Google’s ‘open’ Android platform; iPhone unaffected – March 3, 2011
Security firm warns of new Android trojan that can steal personal information; iPhone unaffected – December 30, 2010
Trojan infects Android smartphones; iPhone unaffected – August 10, 2010
Millions of Android phone users slammed by malicious data theft app – July 29, 2010
Unlike proactive Apple, reactive Google doesn’t block malware from Android app store – June 4, 2010
Malware designed to steal bank information pops up in Google’s Android app store – January 11, 2010
Article source: http://macdailynews.com/2011/12/16/microsoft-gives-free-windows-phones-to-android-malware-victims-iphone-users-unaffected/
View full post on National Cyber Security » Virus/Malware/Worms
NewsFactor – Never let a competitor’s stumble go to waste. That appears to be Microsoft’s strategy, as it is giving away Windows Phones to five Android users following a malware scare on Android Market.
View full post on Yahoo! News: Security News
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The phenomenon of Nordic Noir shows no sign of waning as Hollywood’s version of the blockbuster novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is set to hit the big screen.
View full post on politics hacker – Yahoo! News Search Results
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Cyber activists supporting Anonymous have passionately sought to punish the corruption they see in authority – from digital security firms to big corporations to, now, banks themselves. A hacker splinter group called TeaMp0isoN says it has partnered with supporters of the extremely loose-knit network of hacktivists and pranksters, to steal credit cards from several banks including Chase, Bank of America and CitiBank and give the money to charities and “the 99%.” The project, announced yesterday, is called Operation Robin Hood and in response to the Occupy Movement.
Also announced yesterday: the cyber security market is (surprise) booming. This is the industry making money from companies and governments who want to defend and attack digital threats like Operation Robin Hood. Total spending will reach $60 billion by the end of this year, then grow at close to 10% each year for the next three to five years, according to a report from accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers. The United States accounts for more than half the total, with Japan and the U.K. the next largest markets.
The report says that “growing threats” and “increasing awareness” of cyber threats are key to the rise in spending, and it points squarely at Anonymous and LulzSec, a hacker splinter group that terrorized the Internet for 50 days last summer. LulzSec struck everyone from FBI affiliate Infragard, to Sony Pictures, to PBS. Like TeamPoison, the group, made up of about six hackers, had split from Anonymous at first, before partnering with the collective towards the end of their spree to collaborate on reviving the Anti-security (Antisec) movement. The group received plenty of headlines from the mainstream media on their hacks, their eventual disbanding and the arrest of alleged members.
All this, PwC says, is helping drive cyber security deals. “Against the backdrop of heightened awareness of hacks and deliberate attacks on institutions by semi-organized groups, the cyber security market is undergoing significant change and attracting investment from sectors that span technology, telecommunications, defense, professional services and financial investors,” said Rob Fisher, PwC’s U.S. technology leader for transaction services.
Money isn’t just flowing through goods and services, but deal-making too: nearly half the $22 million spent globally on cyber security deals since 2008, was spent in the first half of 2011. Thirty seven deals accounted for more than $10 billion in deal value, according to PwC.
Plenty of folks in the cyber security field have debated whether the rise of Anonymous would actually lead to increased spending on services like protection from DDoS attacks, which can temporarily paralyze a website, and SQL injection-type attacks that can raid a database and sometimes purge it of all contents.
Aaron Barr, the former CEO of digital security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous attacked in February after Barr tried identifying supporters, recently predicted that spending would not increase because of Anonymous, but shift in terms of its type. “Some companies have shifted the money towards website security and… anti-DDoS,” he told the press during a conference held by digital security giant RSA in London in October. Before Anonymous, the industry was seeing demand for DDoS-type technology focused primarily in Asia, but since then it had spread around the world.
PwC’s report suggests Barr may have been wrong, though it seems not to have been able to quantify the “Anonymous” factor in the spending rise.
The irony in all this is that Anonymous by nature is not a massive, global organization constantly plotting new cyber attacks against governments and corporations, but small cells of people working independently across the globe, some vastly more skilled than others in hacking, but sharing the same name. It’s the name that amplifies their voices, no matter how unlikely their threat may be (witness the much-hyped plot against Facebook earlier this year). When “Anonymous” and “We are legion” are invoked, many people take note, and a few get worried enough to get their wallets out.
Supporters of Anonymous are great at playing up the scary persona – the collective is borne out of the internet culture for trolling and exaggeration, and the macho, confrontational rhetoric that’s all over IRC (chat) networks and prevalent in hacker culture. In the end that may translate to one thing for the digital security industry: dollars.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-takes-rich-gives-cyber-security-market-173134774.html
View full post on National Cyber Security » Computer Hacking
Cyber activists supporting Anonymous have passionately sought to punish the corruption they see in authority – from digital security firms to big corporations to, now, banks themselves. A hacker splinter group called TeaMp0isoN says it has partnered with supporters of the extremely loose-knit network of hacktivists and pranksters, to steal credit cards from several banks including Chase, Bank of America and CitiBank and give the money to charities and “the 99%.” The project, announced yesterday, is called Operation Robin Hood and in response to the Occupy Movement.
Also announced yesterday: the cyber security market is (surprise) booming. This is the industry making money from companies and governments who want to defend and attack digital threats like Operation Robin Hood. Total spending will reach $60 billion by the end of this year, then grow at close to 10% each year for the next three to five years, according to a report from accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers. The United States accounts for more than half the total, with Japan and the U.K. the next largest markets.
The report says that “growing threats” and “increasing awareness” of cyber threats are key to the rise in spending, and it points squarely at Anonymous and LulzSec, a hacker splinter group that terrorized the Internet for 50 days last summer. LulzSec struck everyone from FBI affiliate Infragard, to Sony Pictures, to PBS. Like TeamPoison, the group, made up of about six hackers, had split from Anonymous at first, before partnering with the collective towards the end of their spree to collaborate on reviving the Anti-security (Antisec) movement. The group received plenty of headlines from the mainstream media on their hacks, their eventual disbanding and the arrest of alleged members.
All this, PwC says, is helping drive cyber security deals. “Against the backdrop of heightened awareness of hacks and deliberate attacks on institutions by semi-organized groups, the cyber security market is undergoing significant change and attracting investment from sectors that span technology, telecommunications, defense, professional services and financial investors,” said Rob Fisher, PwC’s U.S. technology leader for transaction services.
Money isn’t just flowing through goods and services, but deal-making too: nearly half the $22 million spent globally on cyber security deals since 2008, was spent in the first half of 2011. Thirty seven deals accounted for more than $10 billion in deal value, according to PwC.
Plenty of folks in the cyber security field have debated whether the rise of Anonymous would actually lead to increased spending on services like protection from DDoS attacks, which can temporarily paralyze a website, and SQL injection-type attacks that can raid a database and sometimes purge it of all contents.
Aaron Barr, the former CEO of digital security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous attacked in February after Barr tried identifying supporters, recently predicted that spending would not increase because of Anonymous, but shift in terms of its type. “Some companies have shifted the money towards website security and… anti-DDoS,” he told the press during a conference held by digital security giant RSA in London in October. Before Anonymous, the industry was seeing demand for DDoS-type technology focused primarily in Asia, but since then it had spread around the world.
PwC’s report suggests Barr may have been wrong, though it seems not to have been able to quantify the “Anonymous” factor in the spending rise.
The irony in all this is that Anonymous by nature is not a massive, global organization constantly plotting new cyber attacks against governments and corporations, but small cells of people working independently across the globe, some vastly more skilled than others in hacking, but sharing the same name. It’s the name that amplifies their voices, no matter how unlikely their threat may be (witness the much-hyped plot against Facebook earlier this year). When “Anonymous” and “We are legion” are invoked, many people take note, and a few get worried enough to get their wallets out.
Supporters of Anonymous are great at playing up the scary persona – the collective is borne out of the internet culture for trolling and exaggeration, and the macho, confrontational rhetoric that’s all over IRC (chat) networks and prevalent in hacker culture. In the end that may translate to one thing for the digital security industry: dollars.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-takes-rich-gives-cyber-security-industry-173134962.html
View full post on National Cyber Security » Computer Hacking
Cyber activists supporting Anonymous have passionately sought to punish the corruption they see in authority – from digital security firms to big corporations to, now, banks themselves. A hacker splinter group called TeaMp0isoN says it has partnered with supporters of the extremely loose-knit network of hacktivists and pranksters, to steal credit cards from several banks including Chase, Bank of America and CitiBank and give the money to charities and “the 99%.” The project, announced yesterday, is called Operation Robin Hood and in response to the Occupy Movement.
Also announced yesterday: the cyber security market is (surprise) booming. This is the industry making money from companies and governments who want to defend and attack digital threats like Operation Robin Hood. Total spending will reach $60 billion by the end of this year, then grow at close to 10% each year for the next three to five years, according to a report from accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers. The United States accounts for more than half the total, with Japan and the U.K. the next largest markets.
The report says that “growing threats” and “increasing awareness” of cyber threats are key to the rise in spending, and it points squarely at Anonymous and LulzSec, a hacker splinter group that terrorized the Internet for 50 days last summer. LulzSec struck everyone from FBI affiliate Infragard, to Sony Pictures, to PBS. Like TeamPoison, the group, made up of about six hackers, had split from Anonymous at first, before partnering with the collective towards the end of their spree to collaborate on reviving the Anti-security (Antisec) movement. The group received plenty of headlines from the mainstream media on their hacks, their eventual disbanding and the arrest of alleged members.
All this, PwC says, is helping drive cyber security deals. “Against the backdrop of heightened awareness of hacks and deliberate attacks on institutions by semi-organized groups, the cyber security market is undergoing significant change and attracting investment from sectors that span technology, telecommunications, defense, professional services and financial investors,” said Rob Fisher, PwC’s U.S. technology leader for transaction services.
Money isn’t just flowing through goods and services, but deal-making too: nearly half the $22 million spent globally on cyber security deals since 2008, was spent in the first half of 2011. Thirty seven deals accounted for more than $10 billion in deal value, according to PwC.
Plenty of folks in the cyber security field have debated whether the rise of Anonymous would actually lead to increased spending on services like protection from DDoS attacks, which can temporarily paralyze a website, and SQL injection-type attacks that can raid a database and sometimes purge it of all contents.
Aaron Barr, the former CEO of digital security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous attacked in February after Barr tried identifying supporters, recently predicted that spending would not increase because of Anonymous, but shift in terms of its type. “Some companies have shifted the money towards website security and… anti-DDoS,” he told the press during a conference held by digital security giant RSA in London in October. Before Anonymous, the industry was seeing demand for DDoS-type technology focused primarily in Asia, but since then it had spread around the world.
PwC’s report suggests Barr may have been wrong, though it seems not to have been able to quantify the “Anonymous” factor in the spending rise.
The irony in all this is that Anonymous by nature is not a massive, global organization constantly plotting new cyber attacks against governments and corporations, but small cells of people working independently across the globe, some vastly more skilled than others in hacking, but sharing the same name. It’s the name that amplifies their voices, no matter how unlikely their threat may be (witness the much-hyped plot against Facebook earlier this year). When “Anonymous” and “We are legion” are invoked, many people take note, and a few get worried enough to get their wallets out.
Supporters of Anonymous are great at playing up the scary persona – the collective is borne out of the internet culture for trolling and exaggeration, and the macho, confrontational rhetoric that’s all over IRC (chat) networks and prevalent in hacker culture. In the end that may translate to one thing for the digital security industry: dollars.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-takes-rich-gives-cyber-security-industry-173134962.html
View full post on National Cyber Security » Computer Hacking