Once Again, If You're Trying To Save The $200 Million Movie, Perhaps You're Asking The Wrong Questions

from the why-$200-million dept

Many years back, when discussing new business models that don't need to rely on copyright at a Cato event, an NBC Universal executive demanded to know how he could keep making $200 million movies. As we said at the time, that's asking the wrong question. It's makes no sense at all to start from a cost, and then derive back how to make that profitable. I could just as easily ask how can we possibly make $1 trillion movies in the future? The only thing that should concern Hollywood is how it can make profitable movies in the future. That could mean figuring out ways to make a profit on a movie that costs $200 million (and, certainly big blockbuster movies like Avatar sure seem to still be able to make plenty of money, despite being widely downloaded via unauthorized means). However, it might also mean making really good movies for a lot less money. Of course, we've suggested that in the past, and got mocked by Hollywood folks who seem to insist that any good movie has to cost a lot of money. That seems pretty presumptuous.

I'm a bit behind on this (the SOPA/PIPA stuff took up a lot of time), but filmmaker/actor/director/writer Ed Burns, who came to fame a couple decades ago with the massively successful indie film The Brothers McMullen, likely had every opportunity to follow the path of plenty of successful indie moviemakers: go mainstream. He could have hooked up with a big studio and been filming the latest of those $200 million bubble-gum flicks. And while Burns has appeared in a few big studio films (Saving Private Ryan), over the last few years, he's really focused on staying close to his indie roots. In fact, he's stayed so close to them, that you could argue his latest efforts are even more indie than his first film.

He filmed his latest movie, Newlyweds for a grand total of $9,000 ($2K for insurance, $2k for actors, $5k for food, transportation, and other costs) and was done in just 12 days -- but spread out over 5 months. He used a three-man crew, natural lighting, found locations that didn't require paying, and filmed with a Canon 5D camera.

How do you make a movie for $9000? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M7-3GcQVVyY

Of course, he's admitted that the editing and post-production work really brought the overall budget up to about $120,000 -- but that's still an incredibly inexpensive movie. He's also focused on using Twitter to market the film. In that interview, he notes that if you connect with your fans, they'll "work on your behalf" to help you do stuff. He's distributing it using VOD, and it seems very likely that it will make a nice profit (if it hasn't already), just given the low budget, and all the buzz the film has been getting.

Of course, no one is saying that all movies should be made for $9,000 (though, I'm sure some of our regular critics will pretend that's what I'm saying). But there is an argument that lots of really great movies that would never have been made before, now have the ability to get made, distributed, watched (and be profitable!) in a way that simply wasn't possible just a few years ago. Frankly, I'd rather focus on ways to help more filmmakers be able to make movies like this, than worry about how some exec at NBC Universal defends his decision to waste $200 million on the next "reboot" of some franchise no one cares about.

Newlyweds Trailer (HD) (Edward Burns) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uhPd-b1LAMM

How The FBI's Desire To Wiretap Every New Technology Makes Us Less Safe

from the can-you-hear-me-now? dept

Here they go again. Every year or so we end up writing about the FBI's desire for better wiretapping capabilities for new technologies, such as Skype. Basically, the FBI argues that because "bad guys" might use those tools to communicate in secret, they need backdoors to make sure that they can keep tabs on the bad guys.

But they're forgetting something: the FBI isn't necessarily the only one who will get access to those backdoors. In fact, by requiring backdoors to enable surveillance on all sorts of systems, the FBI is almost guaranteeing that the bad guys will use those backdoors for their own nefarious purposes. It's not security, it's anti-security.

This is why claims by the feds that we need cybersecurity legislation, like CISPA or the Cybersecurity Act, ring hollow. If they really wanted more protected networks, they wouldn't keep asking for specific security holes to be explicitly added to those networks.

Two decades ago, the FBI complained it was having trouble tapping the then-latest cellphones and digital telephone switches. After extensive FBI lobbying, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994, mandating that all telephone switches include FBI-approved wiretapping capabilities.
CALEA was justifiably controversial, not least because its requirement for “backdoors” across our communications infrastructure seemed like a security nightmare: How could we keep criminals and foreign spies from exploiting weaknesses in the new wiretapping features? Would we even be able to detect them when they did?
Those fears were soon borne out. In 2004, a mysterious someone — the case was never solved — hacked the wiretap backdoors of a Greek cellular switch to listen in on senior government officials … including the prime minister.
Think this could only happen abroad? Some years ago, the U.S. National Security Agency discovered that every telephone switch for sale to the Department of Defense had security vulnerabilities in their mandated wiretap implementations. Every. Single. One.

Somehow, the FBI always thinks that if there are backdoors, only it will use them. That is extreme wishful thinking.

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/01/wiretap-backdoors/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29     

The FBI Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors

• By Matt Blaze and Susan Landau
• 01.14.13
• 
  

Photo: dustball / Flickr

Just imagine if all the applications and services you saw or heard about at CES last week had to be designed to be “wiretap ready” before they could be offered on the market. Before regular people like you or me could use them.
Yet that’s a real possibility. For the last few years, the FBI’s been warning that its surveillance capabilities are “going dark,” because internet communications technologies — including devices that connect to the internet — are getting too difficult to intercept with current law enforcement tools. So the FBI wants a more wiretap-friendly internet, and legislation to mandate it will likely be proposed this year.
But a better way to protect privacy and security on the internet may be for the FBI to get better at breaking into computers.
Whoa, what? Let us explain.
Whether we like them or not, wiretaps — legally authorized ones only, of course — are an important law enforcement tool. But mandatory wiretap backdoors in internet services would invite at least as much new crime as it could help solve.
Especially because we’re knee deep in what can only be called a cybersecurity crisis. Criminals, rival nation states, and rogue hackers routinely seek out and exploit vulnerabilities in our computers and networks — much faster than we can fix them. In this cybersecurity landscape, wiretapping interfaces are particularly juicy targets.
Every connection, every interface increases our exposure and makes criminals’ jobs easier.

Matt Blaze directs the Distributed Systems Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies cryptography and secure systems. Prior to joining Penn, he was a distinguished member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs. He can be found on Twitter at mattblaze.
Susan Landau is currently a Guggenheim Scholar. She was a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems. Landau is the author of Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies.  

We’ve Been Here Before

Two decades ago, the FBI complained it was having trouble tapping the then-latest cellphones and digital telephone switches. After extensive FBI lobbying, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994, mandating that all telephone switches include FBI-approved wiretapping capabilities.
CALEA was justifiably controversial, not least because its requirement for “backdoors” across our communications infrastructure seemed like a security nightmare: How could we keep criminals and foreign spies from exploiting weaknesses in the new wiretapping features? Would we even be able to detect them when they did?
Those fears were soon borne out. In 2004, a mysterious someone — the case was never solved — hacked the wiretap backdoors of a Greek cellular switch to listen in on senior government officials … including the prime minister.
Think this could only happen abroad? Some years ago, the U.S. National Security Agency discovered that every telephone switch for sale to the Department of Defense had security vulnerabilities in their mandated wiretap implementations. Every. Single. One.
Given these risks, you might think now’s a good time to scale back CALEA and harden our communications infrastructure against attack.
But the FBI wants to do the opposite. They want to massively expand the wiretap mandate beyond phone services to internet-based services: instant messaging systems, video conferencing, e-mail, smartphone apps, and so on.
Yet on the internet, the threats — and consequences of compromise — are even more serious than with telephone switches. Not only would wiretap mandates put a damper on innovation, but the FBI is effectively choosing making it easier to solve some crimes by opening the door to other crimes.
Are these really the only options we have? No.

The FBI wants to massively expand the wiretap mandate beyond phone services to internet-based services.

Bugs Are Backdoors, Too

If it turns out that important surveillance sources really are going dark — and that’s a big if (it’s not only on TV that modern tech already makes it easier to surveil suspects) — there’s no need to mandate wiretap backdoors.
That’s because there’s already an alternative in place: buggy, vulnerable software.
The same vulnerabilities that enable crime in the first place also give law enforcement a way to wiretap — when they have a narrowly targeted warrant and can’t get what they’re after some other way. The very reasons why we have Patch Tuesday followed by Exploit Wednesday, why opening e-mail attachments feels like Russian roulette, and why anti-virus software and firewalls aren’t enough to keep us safe online provide the very backdoors the FBI wants.
Since the beginning of software time, every technology device — and especially ones that use the internet — has and continues to have vulnerabilities. The sad truth is that as hard as we may try, as often as we patch what we can patch, no one knows how to build secure software for the real world.
Instead of building special (and more vulnerable) new wiretapping interfaces, law enforcement can tap their targets’ devices and apps directly by exploiting existing vulnerabilities. Instead of changing the law, they can use specialized, narrowly targeted exploit tools to do the tapping.
In fact, targeted FBI computer exploits are nothing new. When the FBI placed a “keylogger” on suspected bookmaker Nicky Scarfo Jr.’s computer in 2000, it allowed the government to win a conviction from decrypting his files after gaining access to his PGP password. A few years later, the FBI developed “CIPAV,” a piece of software that enables investigators to download such spying tools electronically.

The sad truth is that no one knows how to build secure software for the real world.

Exploits aren’t a magic wiretapping bullet. There’s engineering effort involved in finding vulnerabilities and building exploit tools, and that costs money.
And when the FBI finds a vulnerability in a major piece of software, shouldn’t they let the manufacturer know so innocent users can patch? Should the government buy exploit tools on the underground market or build them themselves? These are difficult questions, but they’re not fundamentally different from those we grapple with for dealing with informants, weapons, and other potentially dangerous law enforcement tools.
But at least targeted exploit tools are harder to abuse on a large scale than globally mandated backdoors in every switch, every router, every application, every device.
While the thought of the FBI exploiting vulnerabilities to conduct authorized wiretaps makes us a bit queasy, at least that approach leaves the infrastructure, and everyone else’s devices, alone.
Ultimately, not much is gained — but too much is lost — by mandating special “lawful intercept” interfaces in internet systems. There’s no need to talk about adding deliberate backdoors until we figure out how to get rid of the unintentional ones … and that won’t be for a long, long time.

'Under American Law, Anyone Interesting Is A Felon' - Tim Wu On The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

from the destroyed-to-protect-imaginary-property dept

The reactions to Aaron Swartz's suicide continue to pour in and the recurring theme is one of disbelief at the government's hard nosed prosecutorial stance towards Swartz's actions. The Secret Service, for unknown reasons, took over the case and the prosecutor insisted on a guilty plea across the board as well as pretty much guaranteeing jail time for the hacker.

Tim Wu's excellent editorial details how the justice system made a mockery of that first word by relentlessly applying pressure to a young man whose "crime" was truly victimless.

The act was harmless—not in the sense of hypothetical damages or the circular logic of deterrence theory (that’s lawyerly logic), but in John Stuart Mill’s sense, meaning that there was no actual physical harm, nor actual economic harm. The leak was found and plugged; JSTOR suffered no actual economic loss. It did not press charges. Like a pie in the face, Swartz’s act was annoying to its victim, but of no lasting consequence.

This fact cannot be overstated. JSTOR itself declined to press charges against Swartz once its "property" was recovered. But this wasn't good enough for the federal prosecutor who took an outdated law and applied the interpretation that would do the most damage.

In our age, armed with laws passed in the nineteen-eighties and meant for serious criminals, the federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz approved a felony indictment that originally demanded up to thirty-five years in prison. Worse still, her legal authority to take down Swartz was shaky. Just last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a similar prosecution. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a prominent conservative, refused to read the law in a way that would make a criminal of “everyone who uses a computer in violation of computer use restrictions—which may well include everyone who uses a computer.” Ortiz and her lawyers relied on that reading to target one of our best and brightest.

Wu says this targeting cut down a genius in his prime -- a curious and impulsive young man whose actions were actually less illegal than those of two computing pioneers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who hacked AT&T's system for free long distance calls and sold "blue boxes" so others could do the same. They were never prosecuted for their actions and went on to found Apple -- something a prosecutor like Ortiz could have made impossible.

"We can rightly judge a society by how it treats its eccentrics and deviant geniuses—and by that measure, we have utterly failed," Wu says. And why? Because an adversarial, zealous prosecutor put in charge of the right case can wreak an incredible amount of havoc in pursuit of "justice."

Yes, most of the time prosecutors do chase actual wrongdoers, but today our criminal laws are so expansive that most people of any vigor and spirit can be found to violate them in some way. Basically, under American law, anyone interesting is a felon. The prosecutors, not the law, decide who deserves punishment.

Between the system of IP laws that awards fees for imaginary damages and a government that views any information leaks as criminal activity, Swartz never had a chance -- and sadly, unless there are major changes in the system, neither will his successors.

In an age when our frontiers are digital, the criminal system threatens something intangible but incredibly valuable. It threatens youthful vigor, difference in outlook, the freedom to break some rules and not be condemned or ruined for the rest of your life. Swartz was a passionate eccentric who could have been one of the great innovators and creators of our future. Now we will never know.

An effort to increase public knowledge, with no profit motive, as misguided and rash as it may have been, was rewarded with an intense crackdown, even after the "victim" had stated it was satisfied with the outcome. No matter your view on intellectual property, it should never have come to this. Swartz brazenly exploited loopholes to liberate documents he felt should have been public domain in the first place, much as he legally exploited free usage of the PACER system earlier.

It's very tempting to couch this discussion in language that pays its due to "rights holders." Swartz somehow needed to be punished for his deeds, even with some sort of slap on the wrist, because it was legally or morally wrong. MIT was abused. JSTOR was abused. The IP system -- the status quo -- was abused by Swartz's actions. That's the way we're programmed to feel. That no matter the overreaction, we need to give some quarter to the reacting parties. But when it comes to this situation, it feels completely wrong.

Wu's take shows just how dangerous this form of dues-paying is -- grant the system a little token respect before heading off into the "but" section of the argument and you've already justified a reaction. If the reaction seems too harsh, it's too late. You've already implicitly granted the system the right to punish perceived wrongs, something it often handles with ineptness or vindictiveness, and in worst case scenarios, large quantities of both.

The system has little use for rebels, innovators, and the internet-native element that threatens cherished IP institutions. It wasn't pleased with Swartz and the best way to discourage more Swartzes from leaping into action was to lock up the original, or bleed him dry with an extended legal battle. It ended up with nothing. Or rather, it ended up creating a martyr and rekindling a movement -- "nothing" would have been better. There will be more like him and, if the system remains unchanged, they will have their futures extinguished as soon as their actions put them in the firing line. The protected works are quantifiable. The extinguished possibilities verge on endless.

Aaron Swartz Could Have Killed Someone, Robbed A Bank & Sold Child Porn & Faced Less Time In Prison

from the the-system,-she-is-broken dept

Among the many injustices in the Justice Department's pursuit of Aaron Swartz was the disproportionate punishment he was facing. Remember that he used an open network connection at MIT, which explicitly allowed free guest access, to download academic research papers that were available for free for any user on that particular network. And yet, due to the US Attorney's Office led by Carmen Ortiz and Steve Heymann piling on additional charges, Swartz was potentially facing 50 years in prison.

Yes, reports claimed that Heymann offered to plea bargain things down to a mere 7 years in prison, but that's still an insane length, and by rejecting such a plea offer, Swartz guaranteed that Heymann was likely to throw the book at him and seek the maximum. That's how they work.

Over at ThinkProgress, Ian Millhiser, looks at the maximum jail terms for other crimes, and wonders how it's possible that Swartz had the potential to spend even more years in jail. It's quite a list, and you should go check out the full thing, but here are a few of the more interesting ones:

• Manslaughter: Federal law provides that someone who kills another human being “[u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion” faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if subject to federal jurisdiction. The lesser crime of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of only six years.
• Bank Robbery: A person who “by force and violence, or by intimidation” robs a bank faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. If the criminal “assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device,” this sentence is upped to a maximum of 25 years.
• Selling Child Pornography: The maximum prison sentence for a first-time offender who “knowingly sells or possesses with intent to sell” child pornography in interstate commerce is 20 years. Significantly, the only way to produce child porn is to sexually molest a child, which means that such a criminal is literally profiting off of child rape or sexual abuse.
• Knowingly Spreading AIDS: A person who “after testing positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and receiving actual notice of that fact, knowingly donates or sells, or knowingly attempts to donate or sell, blood, semen, tissues, organs, or other bodily fluids for use by another, except as determined necessary for medical research or testing” faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
• Selling Slaves: Under federal law, a person who willfully sells another person “into any condition of involuntary servitude” faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, although the penalty can be much higher if the slaver’s actions involve kidnapping, sexual abuse or an attempt to kill.
• Helping al-Qaeda Develop A Nuclear Weapon: A person who “willfully participates in or knowingly provides material support or resources . . . to a nuclear weapons program or other weapons of mass destruction program of a foreign terrorist power, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be imprisoned for not more than 20 years.”
• Violence At International Airports: Someone who uses a weapon to “perform[] an act of violence against a person at an airport serving international civil aviation that causes or is likely to cause serious bodily injury” faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years if their actions do not result in a death.

And Aaron faced more than any of those for accessing freely available knowledge. Something seems very, very, very wrong about that.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/admission-doping-lance-armstrong-could-110302555.html     

With His Admission of Doping, Lance Armstrong Could Also Take Down Some Very Powerful People and Companies

By Monte Burke | Forbes

• 
  Associated Press -
  This Monday, Jan. 14, 2013 photo provided by Harpo Studios Inc., shows talk-show host Oprah Winfrey interviewing cyclist Lance Armstrong during taping …more 

Related Content

• Play VideoAP Source: Armstrong Tells Oprah He DopedAssociated Press Videos  1:41
• Play VideoLance Armstrong to "speak candidly" to Oprah WinfreyCBSTV Videos  2:59

(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

It’s funny that Lance Armstrong finally admitted that he doped because he wanted to compete again, in running events and triathlons. The urge to compete—and not the urge to seek atonement, redemption or forgiveness—seems to be at the heart of his decision to come clean, so to speak, to Oprah Winfrey, in an interview done yesterday in Austin, Texas, that will air on Thursday night on Winfrey’s network.
Oprah will see a boon from this. Others close to Armstrong, including Armstrong himself, won’t be so lucky. In order to be able to compete again, Armstrong has apparently agreed to testify and whistle-blow against “several powerful people in the sport of cycling,” The New York Times reports, which may include the International Cycling Union and the owners of his old cycling team which was sponsored by the United States Postal Service.
Armstrong will take the first hit. You cannot erase decades of cheating and lying about it. In his meeting with Travis Tygart of the US Anti-Doping Agency, Armstrong apparently whined about being singled out, pointing to the fact that sports in general—football, baseball—are rife with drug cheaters. He’s right. He was singled out. And he deserved to be, not only for the cheating and the lies, but for the attempts to intimidate and destroy those who were seeking the truth about him.
In pictures: The Rise And Fall Of Lance Armstrong
We don’t know how much Armstrong is worth, financially. We know that his sponsors—Nike, Oakley, Dasani, Bristol Myers, the Discovery Channel, Michelob and Subaru—have fled. His moneymaking streams may now be dry. In 2005, Forbes estimates Armstrong was making $28 million a year from these deals. In 2009, he was making $20 million a year. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that last fall, Armstrong “took out a $1.85 million line of credit, secured by his home in Austin, which is valued at more than $3 million,” a sign that he may be preparing for the worst.
Perhaps a book deal and some future “don’t be like me” speaking tours could help him recoup some of his losses somewhere down the line. But possible criminal and civil lawsuits could very well drain him now.
But Armstrong, with his admission, could very well take down a lot of other folks with him. The New York Times today wrote about Thomas Weisel, the financier and Silicon Valley investor behind Yahoo’s public offering. He was the co-owner of the United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, and is most likely sweating and lawyering up at this very moment. The Times reports that he could be subject to lawsuits from former sponsors looking to recoup some money.
[newsincvid id="24234839"]
But those sponsors may not escape scot-free, either. Indeed, Nike may be part of the collateral damage. A few months ago, the New York Daily News reported that Kathy LeMond, wife of American cyclist Greg LeMond, “testified under oath during a 2006 deposition that Nike paid former UCI president Hein Verbuggen $500,000 to cover up a positive drug test.”
The UCI (Union Cycliste International) is the cycling world’s governing body that oversees international events and metes out penalties for positive drug tests. Verbuggen was the group’s president from 1991-2005.
To be sure, the Daily News story reports that Kathy LeMond was not a firsthand witness to this alleged payment. She testified that a mechanic for Armstrong’s team told her of payment, which was supposedly made to cover up a 1999 positive test for corticosteroids.
To state the obvious, this would be a public relations disaster for Nike, one from which they might have a hard time recovering. Verbuggen could be in big trouble. So could Pat McQuaid, the current head of the cycling union.
And these folks and companies may just be the tip of the Armstrong iceberg.
More on Forbes:
[gallery2012]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-admits-doping-and-says-he-will-testify-against-cycling-officials.html?hp&_r=0      oh boy?  he might slip on a bar of soap ??? 

Armstrong Admits Doping, and Says He Will Testify

By JULIET MACUR

Published: January 14, 2013

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that is scheduled for broadcast on her network on Thursday, Lance Armstrong confessed that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his cycling career, according to two people briefed on the interview, which was recorded Monday in Austin, Tex.

Enlarge This Image

Jose Jordan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Lance Armstrong, 41, is planning to testify against officials from the International Cycling Union, the worldwide governing body of cycling.

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Milestones: Lance Armstrong

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• Armstrong’s Business Brand, Bound Tight With His Charity (January 14, 2013)

It is unclear, though, how forthcoming Armstrong was about his doping program, which the United States Anti-Doping Agency has said was part of the most sophisticated, organized and professional doping scheme in the history of sports. Armstrong, when reached by e-mail Monday, said he could not discuss the interview.

Acknowledging his doping past has cleared the way for Armstrong to take the next step in trying to mitigate his lifetime ban from Olympic sports. He is planning to testify against several powerful people in the sport of cycling who knew about his doping and possibly facilitated it, said several people with knowledge of the situation.

Armstrong, 41, is planning to testify against officials from the International Cycling Union, the worldwide governing body of cycling, about their involvement with doping in cycling, but he will not testify against other riders, according to the people familiar with his plans.

He is also in discussions with the United States Department of Justice to possibly testify in a federal whistle-blower case. That case involves the cycling team sponsored by the United States Postal Service, and Armstrong would testify against several of the team’s owners, including the investment banker Thom Weisel, and other officials, one person close to the situation said. That person did not want his name published because the case is still open.

Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong’s former teammates, filed the whistle-blower case in 2010 against Armstrong and other principals of the Postal Service team on which he and Armstrong competed together for several years. Landis claimed the team defrauded the government because its riders used performance-enhancing drugs in violation of its sponsorship contract.

Now Armstrong and possibly his longtime agent, Bill Stapleton, are seeking to repay several millions of dollars of the more than $30 million the Postal Service spent sponsoring the team, as part of their cooperation as witnesses in the case, said the person with knowledge of the matter. (CBS News first reported Armstrong was in talks to return money to the Postal Service.) The Department of Justice is considering whether to join the case as a plaintiff and is close to making that decision, the person said.

Armstrong, who for more than a decade vehemently denied doping, would be willing to testify against the cycling union officials and his former team’s officials because he badly wants to compete in triathlons and running events again. Last fall, he was barred from many of those events because they are sanctioned by organizations that follow the World Anti-Doping Code, the rules under which he is serving his lifetime ban. Armstrong said that lifetime ban was unfair.

He met with United States Anti-Doping Agency officials, including Travis Tygart, the agency’s chief executive, last month to discuss what he needed to do to mitigate his ban. Several people with knowledge of the discussions said Tygart would be willing to reduce Armstrong’s punishment if Armstrong would testify against the people who helped him dope. That would possibly include Pat McQuaid, the president of the cycling union, and Hein Verbruggen, who was the cycling union’s president from 1991 to 2005, a time when doping in the sport was rampant. Verbruggen, who is close with the International Olympic Committee president, Jacques Rogge, is also the cycling union’s honorary president and an honorary member of the I.O.C.

David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said in a telephone interview Monday that he would not believe that Armstrong would testify in other cases to help clean up the sport until it happens.

“This guy is an enigma and nobody really knows what he is going to do, no matter what he says,” Howman said. “I think he’s got his own demons to deal with, but nothing can be done about his lifetime ban when he hasn’t done anything to help us yet.”

Last fall the United States Anti-Doping Agency called Armstrong the kingpin of the doping program on his Tour de France winning teams when it made public evidence that he had doped and had encouraged his teammates to dope. During his interview with Winfrey, Armstrong rebutted the claim that he was a leader of the doping program, saying he just did what his teammates were doing, according to the two people who did not want their names published because they are not authorized to speak about the interview.

Before heading to the Winfrey interview in downtown Austin, Armstrong stopped at the headquarters of his cancer charity, Livestrong, and apologized to the staff. He told them he was sorry for letting everyone down and for putting so much stress on the organization because of his doping scandal.

He did not confess to using performance-enhancing drugs, but spoke for about 20 minutes in the organization’s boardroom, eliciting tears from some of the employees, said Rae Bazzarre, a spokeswoman for Livestrong.

“It was emotional and he choked up for a moment,” she said. “But we were all glad to see him.”

Armstrong had not been at the headquarters since Oct. 21, Bazzarre said, about two weeks before he resigned from Livestrong’s board of directors.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 15, 2013, on page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Armstrong Will Implicate Officials.

THE SANDY HOOK COVER-UP -- FULL MOVIE

THE SANDY HOOK COVER-UP -- FULL MOVIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fIdNl_KwEo

Gun Store Photos Tell The Tale: Preparing For Hunting, Or Survival?

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/2013/01/gun-store-photos-tell-the-tale-preparing-for-hunting-or-survival-2456838.html

Gun Store Photos Tell The Tale: Preparing For Hunting, Or Survival?

Monday, January 14, 2013 19:46

(Before It's News)

Photographs and videos taken from recent gun shows and gun shops nationwide tell the whole story. What story are they trying to tell us? Has America, the sleeping giant, finally awoken to government tyranny at the highest level? Is this about hunting or survival?

Organizers were shocked as 10,000 people attended a gun show in Daly City, California, with customers eager to purchase semi-auto assault rifles and high capacity clips due to fears that the Obama administration is about to eviscerate the second amendment.

Gun sellers out of stock https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8YGEJSmwRWY

WELCOME to Kansas City GUN SHOW - Saturday, Sunday at the KCI-Expo Centerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KqfHTJbDdTE

My Local Gun Shop as of Jan. 12, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ktauWvgho4o

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/signs-signs-everywhere-theres-signs-do-this-dont-do-that-cant-you-read-the-sign/           

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s signs. Do this don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Steve 

~Steve~                         H/T     Miss May

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/sandy-hook-the-curious-case-of-emilie-parker/ if this  is TRUE  ?  ..FOLKS  what KIND of  MONSTERS   R  we C '  ing ?   U tell U.S.            

Sandy Hook: The curious case of Emilie Parker

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Dr. Eowyn |

When news came on December 14, 2012, that a gunman had killed 6 adults and 20 young children in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, I was in shock — like you were. Even after the many gun shootings of the recent past — in Aurora, CO; Tucson, AZ; Virginia Tech, VA; Columbine, CO — Americans were stricken by this latest massacre because 6 and 7-year-old little children were the victims. A moral barrier was crossed, which even the most cynical among us find intolerable.
Since then, however, so many inconsistencies, anomalies, and unanswered questions have arisen about the official version of the Sandy Hook massacre, that doubt and skepticism increasingly are expressed. Where is the school’s security surveillance tape? What about those police and eyewitness reports of other suspicious individuals on the scene, including at least one man wearing camo pants whom police handcuffed? Why is there such a strong resemblance between some of Sandy Hook parents and families and professional “crisis actors”? For these and other anomalies, go to FOTM’s new “Sandy Hook” page.
With no intention to downplay the gravity of Sandy Hook or to disrespect the victims and their families, I must ask certain uncomfortable questions about child victim Emilie Parker and her family. I don’t have any predisposed assumptions or conjectures concerning those questions and their implications. I am simply exercising my First Amendment free speech right by asking questions. (My questions below are colored red.)

Emilie Parker

1. The “Emilie Parker Fund” Facebook Page

On December 14, 2012, angelic-looking 6-year-old Emilie Parker was brutally murdered by Lanza. Reportedly, he had shot every child multiple times, some up to 11 times.
On the same day, December 14, someone — either a family member or a friend who has the family’s permission — created the Emilie Parker Fund page on Facebook to solicit donation for her family. Here’s a screenshot of Emilie Parker Fund‘s “Info” page showing its date of creation:

The donation page was created a day before the actual memorial page, R.I.P. Emilie Parker, was created on Facebook! Here’s a screenshot of the Info page of R.I.P. Emilie Parker, showing it was created on Dec. 15, 2012, a day after Emilie Parker was killed:

If your precious 6-year-old daughter had just been shot to death, would you immediately think about soliciting money from strangers for yourself, as well as have the presence of mind to set up a page on Facebook with the following detailed instructions?:

Instructions on the Emilie Parker Memorial Account at America First Credit Union (account #5001359). For AFCU members making a transfer, select the Savings as the type of account, and the last name on the account is Parker. For non AFCU members, the AFCU routing number is 324377516. This account has been shared by several Utah media outlets and can be trusted. Thank you.

A PAYPAL account is also available if you use the email brookeprothero@yahoo.com

That email address presumably belongs to Brooke Prothero. A woman by that name, Brooke Ann Prothero, has a Facebook page, with an “About” page devoid of information, other than that she lives in Ogden Utah — in which the Parker family had lived before they moved to Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

2. The Strange Behavior of Emilie’s father, Robbie Parker

On December 15, 2012, a day after his daughter had been brutally murdered, Robbie Parker choked back his tears (no tear actually materialized) as he made a statement to the press. The only problem is this: Mere seconds before Parker began his anguished tribute to his slain daughter, the grief-stricken dad was laughing and joking!
Here he is again, going from grinning happily to being grief-stricken in the blink of an eye:
If your precious 6-year-old daughter had died a horrible death just a day ago, would you be smiling, laughing, and joking?   

Alligator Tears "Father of Emily Parker can not even shread a single TEAR for his daughter?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_koCqAIVQlo   

Sandy Hook Victims Father Caught Laughing And Joking Then Tries To Act Serious For The News Camera! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KkCB2Ee9cqw

3. Robbie and Alissa Parker smiling with Obama

On December 16, 2012, Barack Obama visited Newtown, CT, during which this photo was taken with Emilie’s parents, Robbie and Alissa:

From left to right: Robbie Parker (his face obscured, holding a blonde girl), Obama, Alissa Parker, unknown woman holding another blonde girl.

If your precious 6-year-old daughter had been brutally slaughtered just two days ago, would you smilingly pose for a photo-op with the president? For that matter, why is Obama smiling? What’s the happy occasion?

4. Emilie’s Double Posing With Obama

Then there’s the now-famous photo of a girl who looks very much like Emilie, wearing Emilie’s dress, posing with Obama during his visit to Newtown two days after Emilie’s death:

See that angelic-looking blonde girl in that darling black-and-red dress standing in front of Obama?
Here’s that girl again in the Parker family portrait below — or is it?:

From left to right: mom Alissa Parker, 4-year-old Madeline, Robbie Parker, 3-year-old Samantha, Emilie.

Who’s the blonde girl wearing Emilie’s dress posing with Obama? Emilie’s younger lookalike sister, Madeline?
To help us compare, I’ve cropped pictures of Emilie and Madeline and put them side by side (see below):

1 = Emilie
2 = Madeline
3a and 3b = unknown girl posing with Obama

5. The Weird Parker Family Portrait

Do you remember the Parker family portrait? Did you notice anything strange about it? Here it is, again (take a close look at the yellow circles I’ve drawn on the picture):

Good grief. Am I losing my mind? Where are Madeline’s and Samantha’s legs?
And isn’t little Samantha’s left hand making a devil’s horn sign, and little Madeline’s right hand also making a devil’s horn?
Here’s a blow-up of their hands:

Making the devil’s horn hand sign isn’t easy. You try it.

A pic I found on the net. This is NOT my hand!

Imagine getting a 3- and 4-year-old to do it….
Maybe that’s why the only way to get 3-year-old Samantha to make the sign is to stuff the two middle fingers into her mouth.
Devil’s horn sign aside, doesn’t Samantha’s left hand (two fingers in her mouth) look deformed to you?
I have not tampered with or photoshopped the Parker family portrait. The picture was taken from the R.I.P. Emily Parker Facebook page. You can verify this for yourself by going to the Facebook page.
H/t HenryMakow
~Eowyn

YEP  the  crim's R   as BRAIN DEAD  as the BANNER KOOKS ?  Hey  crim's  DON'T  u think  U  should rob  the  home  without  the BOOM STICK ;0   dumb asses !  ..just an matter of TIME ...til U will B  facing the wrong end of the BOOM STICK  &   you'll  WISH  U  robbed   the house without  the  BOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM  !!!!   :)   --shouldn't  u  have 2 pass at least AN   BASIC  crim  test ?-------U know  1. If  house  A  has an gun in ?   &  house B doesn't  which 1 should U rob ?  :)   &  u  teach -is     get  the hammer  ready ?   hehe    OUR  SCHOOL'S   R  failing U.S.  in so many ways !  & what  the fuck!  ...it's no wonder E.T.  is probing us UP  the ass? Oops ;0

Here They Come: Burglars target homes of gun owners after their names and addresses featured on weapons permit map published by newspaper

truther January 15, 2013 

[Translate]

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• Address in White Plains, New York, appears on map of legally owned guns published by Journal News on December 23
• Thieves break into house and attempt to steal guns on Saturday

At least two burglars broke into a house in White Plains, New York, on Saturday and headed straight for the gun safe. The thieves struck just three weeks after the address and home owner’s name, registered to a legal firearms permit, was published on the controversial gun map published by the Journal News.
The burglars couldn’t open the safe and the owner wasn’t at home. But this incident has led to speculation that the map is now being used by criminals for targeted gun theft.

Deliberately targeted? This home is White Plains, New York, featured on the controversial gun map and was broken into on Saturday

The thieves broke into the property at 9.30pm on Saturday, using a ladder to enter through a second story window.
According to Newsday, the burglars then headed for the safe where the homeowner, a man in his 70s, stores his legally owned guns.
The intruders abandoned their attempts when they couldn’t crack the safe, and police say that one suspect has been taken into custody.
The home owner declined to comment while police continue their investigations but a New York state senator has again blasted the gun map after this incident.

‘No comment’: The homeowner told News12 he had nothing to add while police continued investigations into the burglary

 

‘Criminal’s shopping list?’ The house that was burgled featured on the controversial map that listed the names and addresses of legal gun owners

Republican Senator Greg Ball has proposed legislation that restricts gun permit information to law enforcement authorities and he strongly criticized the Journal News.
‘It is reported that the burglar used the Journal News’ interactive gun map to target a home included on the map,’ Ball said in statement.
‘The Journal News has placed the lives of these folks at risk by creating a virtual shopping list for criminals and nut jobs.
‘If the connection is proven, this is further proof that these maps are not only an invasion of privacy but that they present a clear and present danger to law-abiding, private citizens.
‘Former convicts have already testified to the usefulness of the asinine Journal News ‘gun maps’ yet the reckless editors are evidently willing to roll the dice, gambling with the lives of innocent local homeowners,’ the senator continued.

‘Reckless’: A New York State Senator blasted the Journal News for their controversial gun map

The New York newspaper reportedly hired a team of armed guards to patrol the paper’s headquarters in West Nyack after publishing the names and addresses of nearby gun permit owners.
The paper caused a stir on December 23 when it listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City in an interactive map.
The Rockland County Times reported that Journal News editor Caryn A. McBride hired gun-toting security guards to guard the paper’s offices amid a flurry of angry emails and phone calls in the following days.
Along with an article entitled ‘The gun owner next door: What you don’t know about the weapons in your neighborhood,’ the Journal News map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.
The publication prompted outrage, particularly on social media sites, among gun owners.
‘Do you fools realize that you also made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns in them to protect themselves?’ Rob Seubert of Silver Spring, Maryland, posted on the newspaper’s web site. ‘What a bunch of liberal boobs you all are.’

Calling for change: The paper said that they produced the map because in the wake of the Newtown shooting many people wanted to know who had legal guns in their neighborhood, and there were protests across the country (pictured).

The newspaper’s editor and vice president of news, CynDee Royle, defended the decision to list the permit holders.
‘We knew publication of the database would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,’ she said.
Some critics retaliated by posting reporters’ and editors’ addresses and other personal information online.
Howard Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, called the critics’ response childish and petulant.

On the list: As well as Journal News the website Gawker published a 446-page list of licensed gun owners in New York City

‘It doesn’t move the issue of gun control to the level of intelligent public discussion,’ he said. ‘Instead, it transforms what should be a rational public debate on a contentious issue into ugly gutter fighting.’
Good said the information about permit holders was public and, if presented in context, served a legitimate interest.
But media critic Al Tompkins of the Florida-based Poynter Institute wrote online this week that the newspaper’s reporting had not gone far enough to justify the permit holders’ loss of privacy.
‘If journalists could show flaws in the gun permitting system, that would be newsworthy,’ he said. ‘Or, for example, if gun owners were exempted from permits because of political connections, then journalists could better justify the privacy invasion.’
Tompkins said he feared the dispute might prompt lawmakers to play to privacy fears.
‘The net effect of the abuse of public records from all sides may well be a public distaste for opening records, which would be the biggest mistake of all,’ he said.

The Sandy Hook Shooting: Fully Exposed

The Sandy Hook Shooting: Fully Exposed    
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wx9GxXYKx_8 

(Thomas Dishaw)  Another Sandy Hook video has been uncovered.
This mini-documentary is almost approaching 3 million views.  All I can say is WOW!
Regardless if you believe the official story, this video is worth a look.
The mainstream media hasn’t asked any of the tough questions the american public demands.  So the conspiracy continues.
What do you think……Was the shooting staged?  Where are the crime scene photos?  Where are the post tragedy interviews?

Sandy Hook:Off Duty Tactical Police Officer From Another Town Spotted In Woods Near School

Breaking News | January 15, 2013 

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(Andrew Gorosko)  As police this week continued their probe into the December 14 incident involving 28 shooting deaths, including 20 first-graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the lawyer who represents the Newtown Police Union is seeking help from the town, state, and federal governments to extend paychecks for “three to five” town police officers who were so traumatized by the incident that they have not yet been emotionally able to return to work.
Police union lawyer Eric Brown said this week that three to five of the town police officers who responded to the crime scene have been off work and collecting sick time pay in light of their being traumatized by the school shooting incident.
However, because the town provides only ten sick days for an officer annually, those police now face the prospect of being off work without pay, Mr Brown said.
The town police department has 45 members. Mr Brown said he expects that potentially 15 town police officers could be clinically emotionally affected by their response to the incident.
Mr Brown said that workman’s compensation is keyed to providing funds for people with physical injuries, not emotional injuries such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The town government has been receptive to the plight of the police officers who have not returned to work, but the town does not have paycheck funds designated for such situations, Mr Brown said.
PTSD is an insidious long-lasting emotional condition, Mr Brown said.
Police face serious, intense situations on a daily basis, he said. But what occurred at Sandy Hook School on December 14 was something on a magnitude that could not have been imagined, he said.
Twenty first-graders and six school staff members were killed after a 20-year-old gunman shot his way into the K–4 school on Dickenson Drive and went on a shooting rampage with a military-style assault rifle.
State police, town police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals Service this week continued their methodical probe into why Adam Lanza of 36 Yogananda Street, Sandy Hook, committed the horrific crime.
Adam Lanza had shot and killed his mother Nancy Lanza, 52, in her sleep at their home before driving to the school and going on the gunfire rampage. After police encountered him at the school, Lanza shot himself to death, bringing the total number of the dead to 28.
State police this week declined comment on their investigation into the mass murder incident. An investigatory report on what occurred, including a possible motive for the gunman’s actions, is expected within several months.
Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe said he supports the police union’s drive to have financial compensation provided for the police officers who are off work due to their emotional reaction to the shooting incident.
Since the shooting incident, police from other municipalities have aided Newtown police with local patrol work.
“They [other police] are done, but can be called in, as needed,” he said of Newtown’s ability to have other police cover local patrol work, as needed.
On Christmas, local police patrols were fully handled by police from other towns and cities, allowing town police to have the holiday off.
Chief Kehoe declined to answer questions about the police probe into the shooting incident, referring such queries to state police.

Investigation Progresses
As the police probe has progressed, some facts of the case have become clear.
According to a reliable local law enforcement source, Adam Lanza attempted to destroy all his computer equipment to prevent any tracing of his Internet usage and his electronic correspondence. It is thought that “some or most” of the computer data will be retrieved from the damaged equipment.
The source confirmed that Lanza used a Bushmaster-brand military-style semiautomatic assault rifle to kill all victims at the school. Lanza also carried two pistols.
Also, Lanza used a different rifle to kill his mother by firing four shots at her while she was in bed at home, according to the source. Adam Lanza left that rifle at Lanza residence.
Also, Lanza shot more than 100 rounds and possibly hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the school, according to the source.
Lanza was not wearing any “body armor” when the school incident occurred.
Additionally, a teacher at the school who realized what was occurring during the shooting incident crowded all of her students into a rest room adjoining her classroom and then pulled a bookcase in front of the bathroom door to obscure it from view. The people hiding in that bathroom survived.
A man with a gun who was spotted in the woods near the school on the day of the incident was an off-duty tactical squad police officer from another town, according to the source.

I am not saying it is or isn't him? ......but HOW  did HE  know that their is a Camera there / & if He does Know Y does He wait so long to Hide Himself? & Suspect is Caught NEXT day ???      &  They know without a doubt WHO it is ???   --strange folks ???     http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/secret-service/aaron-swartz-evidence-657901        

January 13, 2013

Caught Red-Handed, Aaron Swartz Was Prepping For Key Federal Court Evidence Hearing

At the time of his suicide, Aaron Swartz was preparing for a crucial hearing in his federal criminal case, likely his best chance to thwart federal prosecutors who had developed solid evidence against the Internet activist who was facing an April trial on a 13-count felony indictment.
The 26-year-old Swartz, who killed himself Friday in his Brooklyn apartment, was scheduled for a January 25 evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. Lawyers for Swartz were seeking to suppress material gathered in connection with Swartz’s breach of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer network.
The January 2011 incursion netted Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who also helped develop the RSS standard, millions of scholarly papers from the JSTOR archive. He was planning to make the material public at no cost.
Swartz, pictured in the above United States Marshals Service mug shot (click to enlarge), was caught red-handed by local cops and Secret Service Agent Michael Pickett. After investigators determined that someone had begun illegally downloading material from the JSTOR archive, they traced the hack to a basement wiring closet where they found a laptop and external hard drive connected directly to a network switch. The computer and the drive were hidden beneath a cardboard box.
Anticipating that the owner of the hardware would return, investigators placed a hidden camera in the closet. As seen in the adjacent surveillance images (click to enlarge), Swartz was filmed on three successive days entering and exiting the closet. On January 6, 2010, as an MIT police officer was monitoring a live feed, Swartz--using a bicycle helmet to shield his face--was seen packing up the laptop and hard drive and departing the closet.
An MIT police officer subsequently located Swartz riding his bicycle near campus. Swartz, according to a police report, jumped off his bike and fled on foot, but was apprehended and handcuffed by Agent Pickett and an MIT cop.
Swartz was originally named in a state District Court criminal complaint charging him with breaking and entering, a felony. However, when federal prosecutors took over the matter, he was indicted on a slew of counts, including wire fraud, computer fraud, and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer.
With their client facing upwards of 35 years in prison, Swartz’s lawyers aggressively litigated the case for the past two years, most recently filing a series of suppression motions that were set to be argued later this month.

http://conspiracyhq.com/rise-of-the-hydra-cyber-war-in-the-21st-century/    

Published On: Tue, Jan 15th, 2013

CHQ Exclusive / Conspiracy HQ | By Rob Daven

Rise of the Hydra – Cyber War in the 21st Century

inShare

In 1994 I was attending college to study computer programming.  For a couple of weeks in my Systems Analysis & Design class we had been studying the relatively new phenomena of computer viruses.
After a few indepth classes on how & why virii work so well on computers, our final project was to design a virus (only in theory, not actual code) to ensure maximum deployment rates.
I joined up with 3 other classmates and started working on the development.
That night me and another classmate had hunkered around my computer  tinkering with concepts, looking at other virus code and studying security holes that would allow us to deploy the payload.
Some where around midnight after a case of beer I suddenly had an epiphany ..  what if the virus wasn’t a single program residing on a single computer… what if pieces of the virus where loaded separately and the virus only became functional when multiple pieces of the virus combined on the same system?
The actual final theory went something like this…

#1 – The virus would be released in various stages, consisting of around 8 parts.   Each part by itself would be totally sterile, thus allowing the virus scanners to totally ignore the added on code.
#2 – Each payload virus would remain dormant until the master server signaled them to activate.
#3 – At this point the virus code would combine together with the other stray pieces of code to form a totally new virus.  In the process it would also disable any safety precautions such as virus scanners and firewalls.
#4 – Now each instance of the virus would start to seek out other instances and begin to work back and forth in order to use various methods to infect many more systems (think early distributed computing)
#5 – When critical mass was achieved (more instances of the virus than could possibly be dealt with) the virus would start to destroy every record on a physical level (our theory was to have the hard-drive voltage increased causing the destruction of the data platters).
#6…  well thats it… at this point nations would crumble and the world would descend into the dark ages.

Needless to say we got an “A+” on the assignment.

Fast forward to Today

These days I generally don’t have much to do with coding or hard core programming.  I lost interest when I started to become a web developer, and focused on systems integrations and what-not.
But the thought of the Hydra has been in the back of my head for the entire time.
I knew that if a couple of drunk college kids could come up with a project to destroy computing, someone else would come up with a similar concept sooner or later.
Today, I’m gathering its started to happen.
As most of you know I have been hot on the trail of World War 3 and the signs that China and the US are getting ready to rumble.  I also know that the Chinese have been the #1 infestation of hacking against Conspiracy HQ’s server.  Thus when I saw the following story, I became a bit concerned…

During the past five years, a high-level cyber-espionage campaign has successfully infiltrated computer networks at diplomatic, governmental and scientific research organizations, gathering data and intelligence from mobile devices, computer systems and network equipment.
Kaspersky Lab’s researchers have spent several months analyzing this malware, which targets specific organizations mostly in Eastern Europe, former USSR members and countries in Central Asia, but also in Western Europe and North America.
~ Source

While the above mentioned virus seems to be a singular entity, we can see from the data that the originator of the virus is using some pretty advanced techniques to mask who exactly is behind the Cyber attack.
If I had to guess, I would think it was the Chinese.   Every single day Conspiracy HQ is attacked from Chinese IP addresses.   We have even traced a few of them to the military college in Beijing.
We will continue to watch this story as it develops.