Southwestern Electric Cooperative with its headquarters in Greenville, Illinois has served the state of Illinois with a notice of impending disconnect over unpaid power bills. The Cooperative is declining to name the Illinois state agencies and buildings which will be affecting by the shut off, but the disconnect notice reportedly includes 70 separate individual account numbers. On the degree of delinquency a representative for the cooperative noted: Continue reading
Category Archives: Government
Paris Mass Shooters Used Plaintext SMS to Coordinate
According to French police during a raid where they killed the alleged coordinator of last Friday's mass shooting in Paris, a phone was found with plaintext SMS messages used in coordinating the event (archived). The Paris mass shooting different from those in the United States where such events occur with greater frequency in that the the French attack utilized a group of allegedly 8 shooters while such events in the United States more typically involve shooters working as individuals or pairs. French President Hollande has responded to the mass shooting with a declaration of emergency and the suspension of numerous civil rights for French citizens. Hollande has issued statement to the effect of assuring all French citizens regardless of their religious or ethnic background that their civil rights have been suspended equally.
Man Convicted as Serial Killer Over Circumstantial Evidence
Charles Severance was convicted of three murders involving prominent Alexandria, Virginia residents which occurred over more than a decade in spite of the entirely circumstantial nature of the evidence against him and the existence of credible alternative suspects (archived, archived). The first murder to occur for which Severance has been convicted was that of Nancy Dunning, a real estate agent and wife of James Dunning, a former Alexandria sheriff. Her husband the former sheriff was a suspect for a long time though he was never charged in a crime.
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US DoD Extracts Guilty Pleas From Mom and Pop Competitors
The US Navy operating under the larger umbrella of the United States Department of Defense managed to extract guilty pleas from a husband and wife accused of marketing heroin on a United States warship (archived). The couple's marketing of heroin of course makes them competitors to the organized heroin operations occurring in the United States Department of Defense whose activity has lead to heroin overtaking many other drugs of abuse over the course of the United State's adventure in Afghanistan (archived).
Billion Dollar Blimp Brings Destruction
In the United States a Billion Dollar NORAD JLENS Blimp has broken free from its moorings and is leaving havoc and destruction as it roams. The JLENS mission is declared to be missile detection and defense, though the declared capabilities make it capable of abusive ground level surveillance. The wild blimp is dragging 6,700 feet of cable behind it shorting out power lines and leaving a pronounced trail on the earth underneath it.
FBI Agent Encourages Paying Ransomware Demands
The Security Ledger report at a summit the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s CYBER and Counterintelligence Program at the Boston field office, Joseph Bonavolonta, encourages paying ransomware demands (archived). The quality of the encryption implementations utilized in ransomware is frequently too high for his office to do anything to recover the affected files. As a prophylactic measure he encouraged healthy backup measures so systems could at least be restored to a pre-ransomware state.
Symbolics Quadruples Revenue in FY 2015 on One USG Transaction
The privately held firm Symbolics which holds the remaining assets and intellectual property of the former lisp machine manufacturer Symbolics, Inc is reported on the US Government's spending disclosure site to have quadrupled its revenue over last year. The transaction is reported as being for: Continue reading
Operation Cyber Juice: Police and Their Favorite Drug of Abuse, Part 1
Back in September the Drug Enforcement Agency announced an action dubbed "Operation Cyber Juice" involving the bust of a handful of underground labs compounding imported raw anabolic steroid materials into oral and injectable preparations suitable for end users. Also busted were a number of distributors including persons dealing steroids at a LA Fitness club Franchise and at a Juice bar (archived). At least as interesting though, not very surprising is the number of underground labs and clearnet internet vendors who were not busted despite publicly declaring a presence in the United States. Continue reading
Illinois and Pennsylvania Credit Ratings Lowered
Reports have emerged today that the United States regional governments of Illinois (archived) and Pennsylvania (archived) have had their credit ratings lowered joining the embattled municipality of Ferguson as the creditworthiness of the United States and its parts continue sliding due to the structural insolvency of the fiat currency experiment. Illinois was downgraded by Fitch Ratings while Pennsylvania was downgraded by Moody's. Illinois already lead the United States with the lowest credit rating of any State government, and is embroiled in a budgetary dispute between new Governor Bruce Rauner and the legislature run by the opposing political party. The financial situation in Illinois has degraded to the point the self funding state lottery can no longer pay out winning tickets about $600 with ongoing labor unrest including a teacher's strike in East Saint Louis threatening to destabilize some of Illinois most volatile areas. Pennsylvania by contrast was downgraded due to ongoing structural deficits and underfunded pension obligations.
Well Connected Bezzle "Health" Startup Theranos Collapsing
Theranos, a health startup which features a board comprised of two former US Secretary of State, Numerous former US Defense Officials, a former Senator, and a former Wells Fargo CEO is facing accusations of their signature blood testing service was never accurate to a useful degree and they have withdrawn all but one product from the market (achived). Theranos was at one point reportedly valued at up to 10 Billion dollars, or a little more than a half of Whatsapp at the time of its acquision by Facebook. This suggest that even well entrenched fiat luminaries like Henry Kissenger and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD are beyond saving fiat startups they involve themselves with from excessive hype and insufficient competence.