Newsroom

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Plane with 152 on board crashes in Pakistan

A Pakistani passenger plane, with 152 people on board, crashed on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad Wednesday morning.

Six hours later, rescue crews recovered 25 bodies from the wreckage, said Ramzan Sajid, a spokesman for the Capital Development Authority.

Also, eight people were pulled out alive, said Qamar Zaman Kaira, Pakistan's information minister.

The Airblue plane was headed to Islamabad from the sea port city of Karachi when it crashed in a hillside while trying to land, said Pervez George, a spokesman for the country's civil aviation authority.

The Airbus was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members, George said.

"It came from the city toward the Margalla Hills. It was raining heavily," said area resident Ahsan Mukhtar who saw the plane go down. "It shattered into pieces as soon as it crashed. A burst of flames came off, but the rain put out the fire."

The Margalla Hills are a series of small hills north of Islamabad.

Officials do not know if weather played a factor in the crash. Pakistan is in the midst of the annual monsoon season, when rain sweeps across the subcontinent from June till September.

Airblue, a private airline company, offers flights within Pakistan, as well as to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom. It makes a fuel stop in Turkey when it is flying from Manchester, England.

"The aircraft was absolutely airworthy. There was nothing technically wrong," said Taheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline. "Right now our efforts are more concentrated toward the rescue."

Irshad Kassim, the director of a local bank, flies to Islamabad every week on Airblue and was supposed to have been on the flight -- but changed his mind at the last minute Wednesday morning.

"I know Islamabad has a lot of mountains near the landing area, and there is a lot of lightning in the area," Kassim told CNN. "There was a prediction of heavy rain this morning.

"I was on the flight, booked and confirmed -- and I was going to take the flight. I decided at 6 o' clock to not take the flight because of the weather."

He said he received a call shortly after the plane went down from airline representatives asking if he knew whether a Mr. Kassim was on the flight.

"I told them 'I am so sorry, I did not cancel.' I said, 'Due to the rain, I decided not take this flight,'" Kassim said. "Then I asked 'Why are you asking? Is everything OK?'"

It was then that he found out that the plane had gone down.

"I am still numb. I am very numb. I just feel that it's fate, I guess," he said.

"After I looked at the television, I looked at the picture of my three daughters. That's a natural reaction for a father."

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Billions for Iraq reconstruction unaccounted for; lax oversight blamed

A federal audit of $9.1 billion targeted for reconstruction in Iraq cannot account for more than 95 percent of it, a federal report said Tuesday.

The report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, blamed "weaknesses in DoD's [the Department of Defense's] financial and management controls" and called on the Pentagon to improve its financial and management controls.

The audit centered on the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was established in May 2003 by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

After the CPA was dissolved in June 2004, the Iraqi government authorized the U.S. government to administer the funds used for reconstruction.

The Pentagon managed the DFI funds until the end of 2007, when its authority was withdrawn.

The special inspector general reviewed records from eight Defense Department organizations that received DFI funds.

"This situation occurred because most DoD organizations receiving DFI funds did not establish the required Department of the Treasury accounts and no DoD organization was designated as the executive agent for managing the use of DFI funds," the report concluded. "The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss."

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Hackers to flock to Black Hat, Defcon this week

Last year, a security researcher was forced to cancel his talk scheduled for two hacker conferences about weaknesses in ATM software after the ATM vendor complained.

This year the talk is back on the agenda for Black Hat and Defcon, which run Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday through Sunday, respectively, in Las Vegas.

"I've always liked the scene in "Terminator 2" where John Connor walks up to an ATM, interfaces his Atari to the card reader and retrieves cash from the machine. I think I've got that kid beat," Barnaby Jack, who works for IOActive, wrote in the description for his presentation, which is titled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines Redux."

Jack said he will demonstrate local and remote attacks on two new model ATMs from two major vendors and will reveal a rootkit--software designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised--that works on ATMs running various operating systems.

While Jack will finally get to give his talk, another presentation was canceled after a foreign government complained.

Wayne Huang, founder of Taiwan-based security company Armorize Technologies, was scheduled to give his presentation, titled "The Chinese Cyber Army: An Archaeological Study from 2001 to 2010," on Wednesday but pulled the talk due to pressure from the Taiwanese government, according to a spokesman from Armorize.

Huang, who used to do research that helped secure the Taiwanese government's networks from attacks, will instead demonstrate how easy it is to inject malicious code into high-traffic Web sites such as Google, Facebook and others and plans to reveal new information about the targeted attacks on Google and others dubbed "Operation Aurora."

The two conferences are among the most popular annual security events globally. Black Hat attracts a more professional crowd than Defcon, where young hackers have been known to fill their off-hours with antics such as hacking ATMs and hotel elevators and participating in sponsored events such as lock-picking workshops and Hacker Jeopardy.

Multiple tracks of sessions cover a range of topics and often they are standing room only. Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of Homeland Security, will give a keynote talk at Black Hat and speakers at both events represent a who's-who of the security industry.

In a presentation that is likely to create waves throughout the telecom industry, cryptography expert Karsten Nohl will release software that people can use to test whether or not their GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phone calls can be snooped on. The presentation builds on prior work he has done publicizing the security weaknesses of GSM networks.

"There are effective, low-cost patches that network operators can use," Nohl said in an interview with CNET on Monday. "They need to install the patches now that have already been delayed for years."

In another talk, titled "Malware Attribution: Tracking Cyber Spies and Digital Criminals," HBGary Chief Executive Greg Hoglund will be releasing a free malware fingerprinting tool that can provide information about the identity of an attacker. Hoglund analyzes programming language fingerprints, mutations and extensions to algorithms, command and control protocols and other keys and artifacts code writers leave in the software to try to trace the malware back to its source.

Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer at WhiteHat Security, will show how malicious Web sites can steal passwords for other sites that are stored in Firefox's password manager and other threats from attacks hiding in Web pages.

Rob Ragan and Francis Brown, researchers at consulting firm Stach & Liu, will show search engine hacking techniques against Google and Bing to easily find Web sites that have vulnerabilities and release a "live vulnerability feed" to help people detect and protect against attacks.

And Tom Parker, director of consulting services at Securicon, will discuss the difficulty in tracing attacks back to their creator in his talk, titled "Finger Pointing for Fun, Profit and War?"

In addition to talks about security (or lack of it) in critical infrastructure, mobile networks, cloud computing, operating systems, routers and browsers there are numerous sessions about privacy issues related to Google Toolbar, Facebook, ISPs, government surveillance and laptop searches and seizures.

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House Approves Money for Wars, but Rift Deepens

The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $59 billion to continue financing America’s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.

The 308-to-114 vote, with strong Republican support, came after the leak of an archive of classified battlefield reports from Afghanistan that fueled new debate over the course of the war and whether President Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy could work.

But Mr. Obama and top military officials said Tuesday that the disclosure of the documents should not force a rethinking of America’s commitment to the war. As Mr. Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden, “While I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.”

On a day of continuing political and military fallout over the leaked reports, Pentagon officials said that Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, an Army intelligence analyst arrested last month on charges of leaking a video of an American helicopter attack in Iraq and charged this month with downloading more than 150,000 classified diplomatic cables, was a “person of interest” in an Army criminal investigation to find who provided the battlefield reports to the group WikiLeaks.

Administration officials said passage of the spending bill, which now goes to Mr. Obama for his signature, showed that the leak had not jeopardized Congressional support for the war and noted that the Senate passed the measure last week with no objection. Democratic leaders in the House said the Congress needed to act to provide the money troops overseas.

“The president is taking a wise and balanced approach in Afghanistan, and it deserves our support,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat and majority leader.

In the House vote, 148 Democrats and 160 Republicans backed the war spending, but 102 Democrats joined 12 Republicans in opposing the measure. Last year, 32 Democrats opposed a similar midyear spending bill. Among those voting against the bill on Tuesday was Representative David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the panel responsible for the measure.

Some of the Democratic opposition stemmed from the decision by party leaders to strip from the bill money that had been included in the original House version to help address the weak economy at home, including funds to help preserve teachers’ jobs. But some of those voting against it said they were influenced by the leaked documents, which highlight the American military’s struggles in Afghanistan and support claims that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence service were helping the Taliban.

“All of the puzzle has been put together and it is not a pretty picture,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “Things are really ugly over there. I think the White House continues to underestimate the depth of antiwar sentiment here.”

On another part of Capitol Hill, at a confirmation hearing for Gen. James N. Mattis to lead the military’s Central Command and oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee pressed General Mattis about the course of the war.

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, pointedly asked General Mattis whether he agreed that a July 2011 deadline for the start of American withdrawals from Afghanistan would mean shifting from the current troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy to an “increasingly important emphasis” on counterterrorism. In other words, should not the United States use the date to begin moving toward a more limited strategy of hunting down insurgents without trying to rebuild Afghanistan? General Mattis quickly agreed.

“I think that is the approach, Senator,” he said.

General Mattis and two Republicans on the panel, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, used the occasion to denounce the leaks, which Mr. McCain said were “simply an extended footnote to a well-known reading of recent history.”

General Mattis agreed with Mr. McCain. “One of the newspaper headlines was that war is a tense and dangerous thing,” he said. “Well, if that is news, I don’t know who it’s news to that’s on this planet.”

In his opening statement, General Mattis declared, “Despite any recent papers leaked to the media, we are remaining in the region; we are not leaving.”

General Mattis, who is expected to be confirmed by the committee and the full Senate, is to replace Gen. David H. Petraeus, whose tour at Central Command was cut short when Mr. Obama asked him to take command of the allied mission in Afghanistan after Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal was relieved.

At the White House, Mr. Obama echoed recent statements from his advisers and said that the problems that came to light in the leaked documents had long been known and that he was addressing them with a new strategy he put in place last year. “Indeed, they point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall,” he said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a similar argument on Tuesday in Baghdad. “I think it’s important to recognize, or emphasize, that these are documents that cover the period 2004 to 2009,” Admiral Mullen said. “Much has changed since 2009, particularly with respect to our focus, our new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

At the Pentagon, officials declined to say whether Private Manning was a prime suspect in the investigation, but they did say that an Army criminal investigation into the leaks that Private Manning had been charged with — the diplomatic cables and the video — had now broadened to include an inquiry into the source of the leak of the classified battlefield reports.

In April, WikiLeaks posted the video, an explosive tape of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency. Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker who traded instant messages with Private Manning, has said the soldier claimed that he had leaked the cables and video to WikiLeaks and that he turned him into the authorities for national security reasons.

WikiLeaks, in keeping with its policy to protect the anonymity of its sources, has not acknowledged receiving the cables or video from Private Manning. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has refused to say whether the reports came from Private Manning, but he has said that WikiLeaks had offered to help with the private’s legal defense.

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Hackers to get eavesdropping lessons on cell calls

 A security expert said he has devised a simple and relatively inexpensive way to snoop on cellphone conversations, claiming that most wireless networks are incapable of guaranteeing calls won't be intercepted.

Law enforcement has long had access to expensive cell-phone tapping equipment known as IMSI catchers that each cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But Chris Paget, who does technology security consulting work, says he has figured out how to build an IMSI catcher using a $1,500 piece of hardware and free, open-source software.

"It's really not hard to build these things," he said.

Paget will teach other hackers how to make their own IMSI catchers on Saturday during in a presentation at the annual Defcon security conference in Las Vegas.

His technique only works with wireless systems based on GSM technology, which is used by most of the world's wireless carriers. In the United States, AT&T and T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG operate on GSM systems.

"GSM is broken," Paget said on Tuesday in a telephone interview. He said he plans to demonstrate his low-cost IMSI catcher by asking audience members to make calls using GSM phones, than tap into their conversations from the podium.

A spokesman for AT&T Inc, the largest U.S. carrier that runs a GSM network, declined comment. Officials with T-Mobile were not immediately available for comment.

Thousands of hackers will attend the Defcon conference in Las Vegas that starts on Friday, where researchers like Paget will disclose security vulnerabilities in systems from cell phones and business software to systems that run the electrical grid.

Their intention in teaching people how to break into things is generally to make the public aware of security risks and get manufacturers to boost protection in their products.

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Top drug lieutenant seized in Mexico

 A top lieutenant in a Mexican drug cartel has been arrested in northern Mexico, federal police said in a statement Wednesday.

Rogelio Segovia Hernandez, who heads the armed wing of the Juarez cartel, was arrested in Chihuahua on Tuesday.

A reward of about $240,000 had been offered for his arrest, federal police said.

Authorities said at the time of his arrest, he had a pistol, grenade and at least six bags of an undisclosed amount of cocaine.

Intelligence provided by the federal police indicated Segovia, 30, was the principal operator for La Linea in the activities of drug trafficking distribution, kidnappings and killings in towns near Ciudad Juarez as well as Chihuahua.

Segovia was being investigated in extortion of large sums of money from businessmen in exchange for "freedom from aggression" from La Linea, according to police.

He was also a suspect in the August 25th, 2008, execution of five people at a ranch in the town of Aldama, Chihuahua.

The Mexican attorney general's office offered a reward for Segovia's capture in May.

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Judge blocks parts of Arizona immigration law

PHOENIX – A federal judge stepped into the fight over Arizona's immigration law at the last minute Wednesday, blocking the heart of the measure and defusing a confrontation between police and thousands of activists that had been building for months.

Coming just hours before the law was to take effect, the ruling isn't the end.

It sets up a lengthy legal battle that could end up before the Supreme Court — ensuring that a law that reignited the immigration debate, inspired similar measures nationwide, created fodder for political campaigns and raised tensions with Mexico will stay in the spotlight.

Protesters who gathered at the state Capitol and outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City cheered when they heard the news. The governor, the law's authors and anti-illegal immigration groups vowed to fight on.

"It's a temporary bump in the road," Gov. Jan Brewer said.

The key issue before U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in the case is as old as the nation itself: Does federal law trump state law? She indicated in her ruling that the federal government's case has a good chance at succeeding.

The Clinton appointee said the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues, including parts that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.


In her preliminary injunction, Bolton delayed provisions that required immigrants to carry their papers and banned illegal immigrants from soliciting employment in public places — a move aimed at day laborers.

The judge also blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants for crimes that can lead to deportation.

"Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked," Bolton wrote.

The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law and protesters, many of whom said they would not bring identification, were planning large demonstrations against the measure.

At least one group had planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status.

"I knew the judge would say that part of the law was just not right," said Gisela Diaz, 50, from Mexico City, who came to Arizona on a since-expired tourist visa in 1989 and who waited with her family early Wednesday at the Mexican Consulate to get advice about the law.

"It's the part we were worried about. This is a big relief for us," she said.

At a Home Depot in west Phoenix, where day-laborers gather to look for work, Carlos Gutierrez said he was elated when a stranger drove by and yelled the news: "They threw out the law! You guys can work!"

"I felt good inside" said the 32-year-old illegal immigrant, who came here six years ago from Sonora, Mexico, and supports his wife and three children. "Now there's a way to stay here with less problems."

Opponents argued the law will lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. The U.S. Justice Department, civil rights groups and a Phoenix police officer asked for Wednesday's injunction.

Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes, such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants.

They said Arizona shouldn't have to suffer from a broken immigration system when it has 15,000 officers who can arrest illegal immigrants.

In her ruling, Bolton said the interests of Arizona, the busiest U.S. gateway for illegal immigrants, match those of the federal government. But, she wrote, that the federal government must take the lead on deciding how to enforce immigration laws.

The core of the government's case is that federal immigration law trumps state law — an issue known as "pre-emption" in legal circles. In her ruling, Bolton pointed out five portions of the law where she believed the federal government would likely succeed on its claims.

Justice Department spokeswoman Hannah August said the agency understands the frustration of Arizona residents with the immigration system, but added that a patchwork of state and local policies would seriously disrupt federal immigration enforcement.

Federal authorities have argued that letting the Arizona law stand would create a patchwork of immigration laws nationwide that would needlessly complicate foreign relations. They said the law is disrupting U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries.

About 100 protesters in Mexico City who had gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy broke into cheers when they learned of Bolton's ruling. They had been monitoring the news on a laptop computer.

"Migrants, hang on, the people are rising up!" they chanted.

Mexico's Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinoza called the ruling "a first step in the right direction" and said staff at the five Mexican consulates in Arizona will work extra hours in coming weeks to educate migrants about the law.

"None of this is very surprising," said Kevin R. Johnson, an immigration expert and the law school dean at University of California at Davis. "This is all very much within the constitutional mainstream."

The federal government has exclusive powers over immigration to ensure a uniform national policy that aids in commerce and relations with other countries, Johnson said.

A century ago, differing policies among states led to problems that prompted the federal government to adopt a comprehensive immigration policy for the country, Johnson said.

Supporters took solace that the judge kept portions of the law intact, including a section that bars local governments from limiting enforcement of federal immigration laws. Those jurisdictions are commonly known as "sanctuary cities."

"Striking down these sanctuary city policies has always been the No. 1 priority," said Republican Sen. Russell Pearce, the law's chief author.

The remaining provisions, many of them revisions to an Arizona immigration statute, will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said the state will appeal Bolton's ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday, asking the appellate court to lift the injunction and allow the blocked provisions to take effect. The appeal will ask the 9th Circuit to act quickly, Senseman said.

Whatever way that court rules, Bolton will eventually hold a trial and issue a final ruling.

Wednesday's decision was seen as a defeat for Brewer, who is running for another term in November and has seen her political fortunes rise because of the law's popularity among conservatives.

Her opponent, state Attorney General Terry Goddard, pounced.

"Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost," the Democrat said. "It is time to look beyond election-year grandstanding and begin to repair the damage to Arizona's image and economy."

Some residents in Phoenix agreed.

"A lot of people don't understand the connection between, 'Yes, we have a problem with illegal immigration' and 'We need immigration reform,' which is not just asking people for their papers," said Kimber Lanning, a 43-year-old Phoenix music store owner.

"It was never a solution to begin with."

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Army private transferred to Virginia amid WikiLeaks probe

An Army private suspected of leaking classified material, including videos and other documents, has been transferred from Kuwait to a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, was charged in June with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code and is the military's focus in the investigation into who leaked tens of thousands of documents to the website WikiLeaks.

Manning, 22, will remain in confinement as the Army continues an investigation to determine whether he should face the military equivalent of a trial over the charges, according to a statement released by the Army on Thursday.

He has not yet entered a plea, since there has not been a decision about whether he should face trial, Army Maj. Bryan Woods said. Military lawyers for Manning referred questions about him to Woods.

Manning, who had top-secret clearance as an intelligence analyst for the Army when he was stationed in Iraq, was charged in June with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code for allegedly illegally transferring classified data, reportedly including an earlier video that wound up on WikiLeaks.org.

On Wednesday, a senior Pentagon official said that Manning was believed to have accessed a worldwide military classified Internet and e-mail system to download documents.

The Pentagon official, who did not want to be identified because of the ongoing criminal investigation, said investigators believe Manning logged into a system called the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, which essentially provides military members who have appropriate security clearances access to classified e-mails and the military's classified Internet system.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, has declined to say where his whistle-blower website got about 91,000 U.S. documents about the war. About 76,000 of them were posted on the site Sunday in what has been called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.

The documents are divided into more than 100 categories and touch on everything from the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Afghan civilian deaths resulting from U.S. military actions. Thousands of pages of reports document attacks on U.S. troops and their responses, relations between Americans in the field and their Afghan allies, intramural squabbles among Afghan civilians and security forces, and concerns about neighboring Pakistan's ties to the Taliban.

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference Thursday.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the massive leak could endanger troops and jeopardize U.S. efforts.

"The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world," he said. "Intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures will become known to our adversaries."

WikiLeaks responded to the remarks in a Twitter post early Friday: "Gates, who killed thousands in Iraq, Afg and Iran-Contra says we might have 'blood on our hands.'"

The organization's founder has said it held back thousands of documents in order to redact information that could put people at risk. But CNN's review of documents found instances of names of informants and those who cooperated against the Taliban, as well as names of suspected insurgents who were being watched.

CNN has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents, but neither the White House nor the Pentagon has denied that they are what WikiLeaks claims they are.

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Officials: Mexican drug lord killed in raid

Mexico City, Mexico - Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villareal, a principal leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was killed during a military raid in a suburb of Guadalajara, Mexico's defense department said.

Military intelligence located Coronel in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco state, Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas told reporters. During the operation Thursday, Coronel tried to avoid arrest, firing on the military personnel, killing one and wounding another before he himself was killed, Villegas said.

The operation resulted in the arrest of Coronel's right-hand man, Iran Francisco Quinonez Gastelum. Coronel had used two houses located in the Guadalajara neighborhood of Colinas de San Javier as "safe houses" and had not associated with anyone but Quinonez "to maintain his low profile and not draw attention," Villegas said.

Coronel, who was from the state of Durango, had gotten his start in criminal activity working for Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was responsible for sending drugs from Central and South America to the U.S. market, Villegas said.

After Carrillo died, Coronel joined the Guzman Loera drug trafficking group, rising in a short time to become one of its principal leaders next to Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka "El Chapo Guzman," and Ismael Zambada Garcia, aka "El Mayo Zambada," Villegas said.

Coronel led the organization's criminal activity in the west, including the states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and part of Michoacan, "controlling the cocaine traffic through the "Pacific Route," Villegas said.

The U.S. State Department and the FBI were offering $5 million for information leading to Coronel's capture, he said.

During Thursday's operation, authorities found weapons, cash, jewelry, vehicles and furniture, he said.

In addition to eliminating a major drug trafficker, the raid could also dampen criticism against the federal government that it favors the Sinaloa cartel compared to other drug trafficking organizations it is fighting.

"Although the Ignacio Coronel Villareal Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization is based in Mexico, the scope of its influence and operations penetrate throughout the United States, Mexico, and several other European, Central American and South American countries," according to the FBI, which lists Coronel among its most wanted.

Coronel was indicted by a federal grand jury in Texas in 2003. That year, a U.S. federal arrest warrant was issued for Coronel charging him with conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute and conspiracy to import a controlled substance.

Thursday's action was the strongest blow against the Mexican drug cartels since the December 2009 killing of Arturo Beltran Leyva in Cuernavaca. Beltran Leyva also was killed in a military raid.

The Mexican federal government said in April that 22,700 people have died in the country since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

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U.S. military cyberwar: What's off-limits?

The United States should decide on rules for attacking other nations' networks in advance of an actual cyberwar, which could include an international agreement not to disable banks and electrical grids, the former head of the CIA and National Security Agency said Thursday.

Michael Hayden, who was the principal deputy director of national intelligence and retired last year, said the rules of engagement for electronic battlefields are still too murky, even after the Defense Department created the U.S. Cyber Command last spring. The new organization is charged with allowing the U.S. armed forces to conduct "full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains," which includes destroying electronic infrastructure as thoroughly as a B-2 bomber would level a power plant.

Even a formal cyberwar may have rules different from those applying to traditional warfare, Hayden suggested. One option would be for the larger G8 or G20 nations to declare that "cyberpenetration of any (financial) grid is so harmful to the international financial system that this is like chemical weapons: none of us should use them," he said at the Black Hat computer security conference here.

Another option would be for those nations to declare that "outside of actual physical attacks in declared conflicts, denial of service attacks are never allowed and are absolutely forbidden and never excused," and a consensus would "stigmatize their use," said Hayden, who's now a principal at the Chertoff Group. Nations "do not do it and they do not allow it to happen from their sovereign space."

In 2008, for instance, Georgia accused Russia of launching a coordinated denial-of-service attack against Georgian Web sites, which coincided with military operations in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

One complication is that Internet intrusions and denial-of-service attacks are notoriously difficult to trace back to their actual source; is a successful break-in the work of a national government or a 14-year-old hacker in Shanghai or Moscow? The U.S. State Department has linked China to penetrations into Google employees' computers, but China has officially denied it.

The United States' current cyberwar policy remains vague. Earlier this year, a congressional committee asked Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, now the head of the NSA and Cyber Command, when he would "fire back" without consulting the host government first, whether the use of offensive force would be "pre-authorized" below the level of the president, and whether there should be "classes" of networks operated by allies that should be off-limits to infusion.

In his written response, Alexander refused to answer any of those questions publicly, saying the information was classified.

Power grids are another example of where traditional military doctrine may need to shift, Hayden said. "A power grid is, according to traditional military thought, a legitimate target under some circumstances," he said. "Mark 82s are kind of definitive and it's a one-way switch--that thing's kind of gone." (An MK-82 is a general-purpose, 500-pound unguided bomb used by the U.S. military since the 1950s.)

But destroying, or at least thoroughly disabling, a power grid through an offensive cyberattack means penetrating it well in advance. And if there are dozens of different nations stealthily invading a grid's computers and controllers all the time, it's probably not going to be stable. "There are some networks that are so sensitive that maybe we should just hold hands and hum "Kumbaya" and agree they're off limits," he said. "One is power grids...You can't just have 23 different intelligence services hacking their way through the electrical grid."

So far, the United States government has been cagey, even reticent, about discussing offensive possibilities in actual cyberwars. Hayden suggested that this should change, saying that one option proposed by the Council on Foreign Relations would provide an example for the rest of the world by saying that "no American service would penetrate any other nation's power grid absent a presidential finding."

Then there's defending against foreign cyberattacks. For the last few years, it was a little unclear about which federal agency would win this important turf battle, which carries with it billions of dollars in cash and the opportunity for bureaucratic or political advancement.

Last year, a top DHS official quit in disgust, saying that the NSA's attempted takeover of cybersecurity functions could threaten "our democratic processes." Earlier this month, though, the White House published a memo saying that Homeland Security "will exercise primary responsibility within the executive branch for the operational aspects of federal agency cybersecurity" for civilian agencies. (The military's Cyber Command will handle the defense of other federal agencies.)

"I'm told that at the new Cyber Command, 90 percent of their thinking is about attack," Hayden said, but at least 90 percent of their actual work is spent on defense.

Hayden used the opportunity to challenge attendees of Black Hat--thousands of programmers, analysts, and security researchers--to devise ways to reshape the Internet's security architecture.

"You guys made the cyberworld look like the north German plain--and then you bitch and moan because you get invaded," he said. "We made it flat. We gave all advantages to the offense. The inherent geography in this domain plays to the offense. There's almost nothing inherent in the domain that plays to the defense."

[PHONETOOL]

Riots in Kabul after deadly car accident

Scores of people rioted in Kabul on Friday after a vehicle carrying four U.S. contractors was involved in an accident with a car carrying four Afghans.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said it had been informed of deaths and serious injuries among the Afghans in the accident. After the accident, people burned the American vehicle and another going with it and they threw rocks at Americans.

"The U.S. contract personnel cooperated immediately with local Afghan security forces ... who were on the scene and dealing with the situation. Our sympathies go out to the families of those Afghans injured or killed in this tragic accident," the embassy said.

[PHONETOOL]

WikiLeaks founder 'disappointed' by Gates' remarks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that he was disappointed by criticism from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over the release of about 76,000 pages of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

Gates said Thursday that the massive leak will have significant impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.

Assange rejected that assessment Friday, saying in a release that Gates "has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, also criticized Assange and the person who gave him the documents. WikiLeaks, Mullen said, was risking lives to make a political point.

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is, they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Mullen said Thursday at a Pentagon news conference.

Gates said he asked that the FBI help the Pentagon in its investigation of who might have leaked the documents to Assange's internet site.

An Army private suspected of leaking classified material, including videos and other documents, has been transferred from Kuwait to a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, was charged in June with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code and is the military's focus in the investigation into who gave thousands of documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning, 22, will remain in confinement as the Army continues the investigation to determine whether he should face the military equivalent of a trial over the charges, according to an Army statement Thursday.

Assange has refused to say where his whistle-blower website got about 91,000 United States documents about the war. About 76,000 of them were posted on the site Sunday in what has been called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.

Assange's statement Friday was harshly critical of Gates, particularly over deaths in Afghanistan.

"Secretary Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings," the statement said. "He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed. He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground. He could have apologized to the Afghani people.

"But he did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them.

"This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others."

[PHONETOOL]

Microsoft rushes fix for Windows shortcut hole

Microsoft plans to release a patch on Monday for a flaw involving how Windows handles shortcut files, after seeing the hole being used to spread a particularly nasty and fast-spreading virus, the company said Friday.

Initially, the Windows flaw was used to spread the Stuxnet worm via USB drives. The vulnerability, which is in all versions of Windows, is in the code that processes shortcut files ending in ".lnk," according to the Microsoft advisory from two weeks ago that included information on a work-around.

Now there are copycat attacks in which the .lnk hole, or "shortcut hole," is being used in combination with a virus dubbed "Sality.AT," which has spread faster than the Stuxnet worm, Microsoft said in a Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog post.

"Although there have been multiple families that have picked up this vector, one in particular caught our attention this week--a family named Sality, and specifically Sality.AT," the post said. "Sality is a highly virulent strain. It is known to infect other files (making full removal after infection challenging), copy itself to removable media, disable security, and then download other malware. It is also a very large family--one of the most prevalent families this year."

The situation is dire enough for Microsoft to release what it calls an "out of band" patch instead of waiting a week to include the fix in its next scheduled Patch Tuesday, on August 10.

"In the past few days, we've seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability," Christopher Budd, senior security response communications manager at Microsoft, wrote in a post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog. "We firmly believe that releasing the update out of band is the best thing to do to help protect our customers.

[PHONETOOL]

YouTube offers clip makers '15 Minutes of Fame'

We’re all well aware that YouTube has a mouth and a voice, but it would appear the Google-owned clip service is also keen to show it has ears too. Moreover, having listened to user feedback, YouTube is now extending its upload time limit from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

According to YouTube, it is reacting directly to the number-one feature requested by its content creators and, in turn, encouraging them to take full advantage of the upload increase in order to capture that elusive “15 minutes of fame.”

In explaining the clip-sharing site’s decision to extend the upload time restriction, Joshua Siegel, YouTube product manager for Upload and Video Management, pointed to the ever-evolving copyright protection provided by its Content ID system.

“We’ve spend significant resources on creating and improving our state-of-the-art Content ID system and many other powerful tools for copyright owners,” he said in an official release. “Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube. 

“Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today,” he added. “We will continue our strong commitment to provide advanced technology and tools to protect the rights of small and large copyright owners worldwide.”

To help promote the upload time extension, YouTube is asking general users and budding filmmakers to create and submit their own “15 Minutes of Fame” videos.

“Imagine this video is all the world will ever know about you,” coaxed Siegel. “What would you want to communicate? What will be the enduring stamp you’ve left on us all?”

Those looking to craft such video clips should tag their creations ‘yt15minutes’ and submit them before August 4. Winners selected by YouTube will receive a genuine taste of fame when their videos are featured on the site’s homepage.

[PHONETOOL]

Chelsea Clinton's wedding has bloggers pondering interfaith marriage

Jewish publications and bloggers are buzzing about what today's planned wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky means for interfaith marriages and how it affects the Jewish community.

Clinton, who is Methodist, is to marry Marc Mezvinsky, who is Conservative Jewish, in a wedding  in Rhinebeck, New York.

As the Free Press reported last month, about half of marriages in the Jewish community are now with non-Jewish spouses, concerning some who fear their community is shrinking. The Free Press also had a follow-up web chat about interfaith marriage in the Jewish community.

"This marriage will spark conversation in the Jewish world about two main issues: How intermarriage affects the Jewish community; and, whether there is a double-standard in the Jewish community when it comes to the intermarrying ways of celebrities," Rabbi Jason Miller of Tamarack Camps in Ortonville and Congregation T'chiyah in Oak Park writes on his blog. "This high-profile wedding will bring many of the implications of intermarriage to a more public forum."

Rabbi Miller said he's heard that there will be a rabbi and a Methodist minister co-officiating at the wedding today of Clinton and Mezvinsky.

But Miller added that: "What matters more than the Mezvinsky's Jewish heritage and the Clinton's mixed religious background is whether this couple will be able to live life together, share happy moments, raise moral children, weather difficult storms, and make each other laugh. I'm a Conservative rabbi forbidden by the Rabbinical Assembly, of which I'm a member, to officiate at Chelsea's interfaith wedding. But I'm not blind to this new reality. The borders are much blurrier than they once were and more religionists are opening their eyes to this new reality."