False Sense Of Security

First ‘Jackpotting’ Attacks Hit U.S. ATMs

"ATM 'jackpotting' — a sophisticated crime in which thieves install malicious software and/or hardware at ATMs that forces the machines to spit out huge volumes of cash on demand — has long been a threat for banks in Europe and Asia, yet these attacks somehow have eluded U.S. ATM operators. But all that changed this week after the U.S. Secret Service quietly began warning financial institutions that jackpotting attacks have now been spotted targeting cash machines here in the United States."

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Yellen’s Final Act Is To Ban Wells Fargo From Growing

"Until Wells Fargo addresses shortcomings in areas including internal oversight, it can’t take any action that would boost total assets beyond their level at the end of 2017, without the Fed’s permission. The bank said after-tax profit in 2018 would be reduced by $300 million to $400 million and its stock slumped in late trading Friday."

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Blowback: How ISIS Was Created by the U.S. Invasion of Iraq

"In Iraq, the U.S. morphed from heroic liberators into brutal occupiers within a matter of weeks. In Fallujah, which would later become an ISIS stronghold, U.S. troops opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters in April 2003, killing and wounding dozens of Iraqis. The shootings, the torture, the general chaos, all helped drive thousands of Iraqis from the minority Sunni community into the arms of radical groups led by brutal gangsters, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq, formed in 2004 to fight U.S. troops and their local allies, was a precursor organization to … ISIS."

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Trump Nuke Plan Resets the Doomsday Clock

"The 2018 NPR eschews traditional nuclear disarmament pathways in favor of a more aggressive posture that seeks to make nuclear weapons more accessible to American policymakers when formulating deterrence. The possibility of a tit-for-tat exchange of cyberattacks that escalates into a nuclear conflict would previously have been dismissed out of hand; today, thanks to the 2018 NPR, it has entered the realm of the possible."

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Secret Cabinet documents leaked after locked cabinets sold in Australia

"The Australian government on Wednesday launched an urgent investigation into the loss of thousands of classified documents that were sold with two second-hand filing cabinets and later obtained by a major news outlet. The cabinets were sold by a Canberra furniture shop at a discount price because they were locked and no one could find keys, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported."

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‘Show Us the Tapes!’: Activists March to Demand Release of Paddock Video

"While there has been much speculation as to why no video has been released, a documentary which touches on the massacre provides an answer—the casino is playing a massive game of CYA (cover your ass), and the cops are in their pocket."

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FBI fatally shoots victim of kidnapping trio, alone and with his hands bound

"A kidnapping victim was shot to death Thursday during an FBI investigation at a northeast Houston home. Investigators said FBI agents were conducting an operation at a home in the 7300 block of Elbert Street when the victim, 47-year-old Ulises Valladares, was shot and killed. Court records indicate that authorities found Valladares' with his hands bound tape. According to sources, FBI agents accidentally shot Valladares. He was taken to LBJ Hospital, where he was pronounced dead."

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