In a classified briefing with FBI and Homeland Security officials, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee reportedly discussed growing concerns in relation to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. The Moscow, Russia-based company has created these concerns in the Senate due to apparent previous relationships with Russian intelligence and military, coupled with the sheer install base of their software.



Current and former U.S. officials worry that state-sponsored hackers could try to exploit Kaspersky Lab’s anti-virus software to steal and manipulate users’ files, read private emails or attack critical infrastructure in the U.S.

… The Senate Intelligence Committee raised possible red flags about Kaspersky Lab and urged the intelligence community to address potential risks posed by the company’s powerful market position.

U.S. agencies have yet to publicize evidence connecting Kaspersky Lab directly to the Russian government, which makes sense during these early investigation stages. The private company released a statement condemning these allegations, referring to their long history in the IT security realm.

As a private company, Kaspersky Lab has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts. … The company has a 20-year history in the IT security industry of always abiding by the highest ethical business practices, and Kaspersky Lab believes it is completely unacceptable that the company is being unjustly accused without any hard evidence to back up these false allegations.

Until any evidence of government connection is released, it is difficult to say definitively if the Senate Intelligence Committee’s claims are founded. With the amount of Russian involvement in recent news, one can question if these briefings are legitimate or additional momentum towards a new red scare.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Kaspersky Lab Under U.S. Scrutiny for Russian Government Ties

German heavy metal music festival organizers for the upcoming Wacken event have come up with a novel idea on how to preserve the environment and quench the thirst of attendees. They have created an underground beer pipeline buried 2.6 feet that will pump 105,000 gallons of naturally chilled beer from 4.3 miles away to the taps at the festival. It is estimated that 75,000 people and 150 bands will be attending the festival, and each person will consume 5.4 quarts of beer over the three day event. This has meant that many delivery trucks were required in the past to sate the thirst of the ruckus crowd; and the tires on these trucks destroyed the ground with their heavy loads of beer. To repair the damage takes a great deal of time as the festival is held on farmland. Because the pipeline is laid deeply into the ground, normal farming practices can immediately resume after the festival is over.


The new pipeline will carry about 400,000 liters (105,000 gallons) of beer through the grounds of Wacken Open Air Festival in northern Germany. The 75,000 metal fans who attend the event each year consume an average of about 5.1 liters of beer over the three-day festival, according to the statistics portal Statista. This compares to 3.1 liters per person for the Rock am Ring Festival. The pipeline is being built to stop the ground being torn up by beer trucks.


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Source: [H]ardOCP – German Heavy Metal Music Festival Builds Beer Pipeline to Preserve the Environment

Adding difficulty in acquiring the popular devices, Facebook has changed the terms of their marketplace to effectively ban sales of streaming media players known for accessing illegal or pirated content. The removal comes on the heels of similar decisions made by eBay and Amazon to block the “fully-loaded” boxes for sale in their respective domains.



Facebook’s Commerce Policy now describes “Products or items that facilitate or encourage unauthorised access to digital media” as “prohibited”.

As previously reported, these devices in their base form harbor no illegal activity. Yet, the ease of installing plug-ins to access pirated content can be a large factor in purchases. Kodi was not specifically named in these updated terms, nonetheless targeted hardware is powered by the now-controversal software.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Facebook Marketplace Bans Kodi Boxes