Latin America

Brazil hackers accidentally attack NASA as payback for NSA surveillance

"Hackers have hit back in retaliation for US cyber-spying on Brazil but mistook the US space agency NASA for the National Security Agency (NSA), a news website reported here Tuesday. 'Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target,' a specialized blog of the Brazilian news portal Uol said. 'They hacked NASA’s web page and left the message: Stop spying on us,' it said. The hackers’ message also called on the United States not to attack Syria. A NASA spokesman confirmed that a Brazilian hacker group last week posted a political message on a number of NASA websites." Continue reading →

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Argentina arrests teen hacker who netted $50,000 a month

"Police in Argentina have arrested a 19-year-old man accused of heading a gang of hackers who targeted international money transfer and gambling websites. Dubbed 'the superhacker', the teenager was making $50,000 (£31,500) a month, working from his bedroom in Buenos Aires, police say. The arrest operation shut down the power to the entire neighbourhood to prevent the deletion of sensitive data. Police say it took them a year to close in on the teenager. The young man lived with his father, a computer expert, in Buenos Aires. In the teenager's room, officials found high-capacity computers." Continue reading →

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Ecuador seeks to extend libel penalties to cover social media

"The Ecuadoran government has proposed legal changes to punish libel disseminated over social networks like Twitter or Facebook, a top official said Wednesday. Alexis Mera, President Rafael Correa’s secretary for legal affairs, said the move aimed not to control content on social networks, but to extend to them the same rules that apply to other media. Under Ecuador’s penal code, slanderous libel, which involves a false accusation of a crime, carries a punishment of between six months and two years in prison. Correa has used the courts to sue for libel newspapers and journalists who have written critically about him." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin entrepreneur Voorhees doubles down in Panama City

"Erik Voorhees, the man who founded Bitcoin casino SatoshiDice for 45 Bitcoin and sold it a year later for $11.5 million worth of the currency is doubling down on the industry. Although Voorhees isn’t publicizing how much of the 126,315 Bitcoins he personally earned, he is investing them in startups tied to the virtual currency rather than cashing in the coins. At the moment, Voorhees is in Panama City running his new company, Coinapult, launched in April 2012, that lets users send Bitcoin via email or SMS. 'We moved down here because our target market is the developing nations, and the unbanked population (which is massive),' he wrote." Continue reading →

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‘More profitable than cocaine’: Peru is top source of counterfeit US cash

"Peru has in the past two years overtaken Colombia as the No. 1 source of counterfeit U.S. dollars, says the U.S. Secret Service, protector of the world's most widely traded currency. Over the past decade, $103 million in fake U.S. dollars 'made in Peru' have been seized — nearly half since 2010, Peruvian and U.S. officials say. The phony money heads mostly to the United States but is also goes smuggled to nearby countries including Argentina, Venezuela and Ecuador. Counterfeiters earn up to $20,000 in real currency for every $100,000 in false bills they produce after expenses, the investigator said." Continue reading →

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Peru devotes $35 million to protect coffee farmers from fungus

"Peru’s anti-drug strategy hinges on persuading farmers to grow coffee instead of coca, the raw material of cocaine, but low prices and plant disease are getting in the way. President Ollanta Humala’s government is allocating $35 million to help coffee growers pay off debts and cope with 'la roya,' a stubborn fungus known as coffee rust. Peru exports coffee to 46 countries, but the bulk — 60 percent — goes to Europe. Germany is Peru’s largest single customer. Peru ranks alongside Bolivia and Colombia as the world’s main producers of coca, grown exclusively in the Andes of South America, mostly on the eastern slope." Continue reading →

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Snowden files reveal NSA spied on Brazil and Mexico presidents

"Rio de Janeiro-based journalist Glenn Greenwald told Globo on Sunday that a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s emails were being accessed. That was a month before his election. The NSA also intercepted some of Pena Nieto’s voicemails. The communications included messages in which the future leader discussed the names of potential cabinet members. As for Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, the NSA said in the document that it was trying to better understand her methods of communication and interlocutors using a program to access all Internet content the president visited online." Continue reading →

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Caller ID inventor struggles to collect royalties despite owning patent

"Fifteen years after he patented caller ID technology, Brazilian inventor Nelio Jose Nicolai is no millionaire. Quite the opposite: out of work since 1984, the co-inventor of the ubiquitous tool is still fighting to collect royalties. In 1996, the inventor received an award from the World Intellectual Property Organization and a year later — after a five-year wait — he finally secured a patent in his homeland. He then approached domestic mobile phone operators to claim his rights to royalties — and ran into a wall. Over the years, BIMA was modified and named caller ID. But, despite repeated efforts, Nicolai was unable to secure the rights to the new name, causing him to lose out on millions of dollars." Continue reading →

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2 of the Worst Warmongering Neocons Demand To Know

"Why were Beyonce and Jay Z allowed to visit Cuba? Of course, the real question is: how dare the state order us to stay away from places we want to go, East German style? I must say, I'd love to visit Cuba myself. I am told that if one does, one can go through Mexico City and the Cubans do not stamp your passport. Indeed, I'd like to visit Iran, Syria, Gaza, North Korea, and all the other places the parasites don't want us to go." Continue reading →

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Argentina rejects court order to pay ‘vulture fund’

"Argentina has said it will continue to pay back debt on its own terms, after a US appeals court ordered the South American country to hand $1.47 billion (1.1 billion euros) to two hedge funds holding its defaulted bonds. Buenos Aires’ defiant stance is just the latest chapter in an ongoing dispute over government bonds it defaulted on in 2001. Facing bankruptcy at the time, the country struck a deal with almost all of its creditors to restructure its debt at a discount of nearly 70 percent. Argentina has claimed that the court’s decision would spur the other 93% of creditors who previously agreed to a deal to also demand full repayment, thus forcing the country back to bankruptcy." Continue reading →

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