Mediaboss Marketing

It took Sony almost two years to launch a media remote for the PlayStation 4, and when it did, the results werent exactly worth the wait. But now, two years later, accessory maker PDP has an officially licensed option that looks far nicer than Sonys own official option.

The aptly named Media Remote for PS4 does pretty much what it says it can: it offers a simple remote control for navigating the PS4s menus and media controls when youre using it for things that arent gaming-related. Unlike Sonys version, which aspired to be a full universal remote for controlling your PS4 and TV, the PDP option sets its sights lower, offering a more streamlined look with far fewer button options (although theres no volume control).

The PDP Media Remote for PS4 will cost $24.99 ($5 less than Sonys original remote) when it releases on July 18th.

More:
PDP's third-party PlayStation 4 media remote looks way better than Sony's official one - The Verge

Fridays acquittal of police officer Jeronimo Yanez in the shooting death of Minnesota resident Philando Castile is reaffirmation that the system does not work for African-Americans,Black Lives Matter co-founder Melina Abdullah said Saturday.

Abdullah, a professor at California State University in Los Angeles, said the organization will continue working for a world in which black people are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.

We understand that these are not accidents, she said in Los Angeles on Friday. That this system was created to produce these outcomes, and so we have to transform the system.

Castile, a 32-year-old nutrition services supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul, was shot to death during a July 2016 traffic stop. Police said they stopped him because he fit the description of a robbery suspect; dashcam video released today reveals the officer telling Castile he had been pulled over because of a non-functioning taillight. Castiles fiancee, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter were also riding in the car.

In the video, the officer asks to see Castiles license and registration. Castile, who possessed a carry permit for a firearm, can be heard calmly telling Yanez that he was licensed to carry and had a gun. Yanez can be heard telling Castile dont pull it out while Castile replies multiple times that hes not; Yanez then fired several shots into Castiles chest.

Reynolds broadcast the scene from her vantage point using Facebook Live after the shooting. Yanez on Friday was acquitted of a second-degree manslaughter charge and two counts of intentional discharge of firearm that endangers safety.

Abdullah described Black Lives Matter, which was formed following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, as the second anti-lynching movement. She was joined by Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon.

Fulton called on activists to get involved and continue supporting the movement, which she said starts with elected officials, pastors and other community leaders. Fulton said that while she believes the justice system is still broken, there has been progress since her sons death in that there is greater awareness surrounding the issue, due to cell phones, surveillance and police cameras. She said events like the annual Trayvon Martin Peace Walk in Miami are reminders that citizens have the right to walk down the street in peace without being followed, chased, profiled and murdered.

You dont have to necessarily be doing something wrong, she said. Sometimes its how other people perceive you or who you are. I think everybody knows that theres a lot of hate going on in this country that we definitely have to turn around.

Teri Williams, owner of Los Angeles-based OneUnited Bank, the largest black-owned bank in the country, moderated Saturdays discussion. She described a recent incident in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami in which she and a business partner were eating lunch inside a car when a police officer drew a weapon and told them to exit the vehicle with their hands up. Police, according to Williams, had been investigating a shooting in the area. She recalled feeling frozen and confused about how to exit the car without appearing as a threat to the officer.

View original post here:
BLM Founder: Acquittal in Castile Shooting Further Evidence That System is Broken - PJ Media

HOMES FOR VETS: A new reality television show filming in Las Vegas awards home to veterans. Music star Ray J is the host of Homes 4 Heroes. The unique program is sponsored by Las Vegas business owner Maria Miuccio who owns Cash Kingdom, a payday and title loan company. Maria, who also owns an All State insurance franchise, plans to give away 60 homes to veterans and first-responders during the run of the TV program. Former U.S. Army veteran and Nevada Assemblyman John Moore, who lives in the first house Maria donated, is assisting in the veterans nominating process.

CELINES TOUR REACHES LONDON: The British leg of global superstar Celine Dions European tour begins officially tonight June 20 in London with two back-to-back nights of spectaculars at the O2 Arena to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Our Vegas photographer Denise Truscello sent me this photo from Celines European tour that opened in Copenhagen, Denmark June 17. Celine has been based from Paris while hopscotching across the continent and thrilled the thousands of fans jostling outside the Royal Monceau Hotel daily with new fashion outfits. Shell wrap up the European schedule with a return to London for her Live 2017 tour at the O2 on July 29-30.

She has packed 28 songs into her nightly set list: 1. The Power of Love (Jennifer Rush cover), 2. I Drove All Night (Cyndi Lauper cover), 3. Taking Chances (Platinum Weird cover), 4. Loved Me Back to Life, 5. Thats The Way It Is, 6. Im Alive, 7. Its All Coming Back To Me Now (Pandoras Box cover). 8. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Alan Menken cover), 9. Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken cover), 10. Think Twice, 11. The Reason (Carole King cover), 12. Recovering, 13. The Color of My Love, 14. Im Your Angel, 15. My Love, 16. Because You Loved Me, 17. Pour Que Tu Maimes (Encore), 18. All By Myself (Eric Carmen cover), 19. Refuse To Dance, 20. Love Is All We Need, 21. Treat Her Like A Lady, 22. Misled, 23. Black or White (Michael Jackson cover), 24. Love Can Move Mountains, 25. River Deep, Mountain High, (Ike and Tina Turner cover), 26. The Show Must Go On (Queen cover), 27. My Heart Will Go On, and in a salute to her late husband ends with 28. Love of My Life (Queen cover.)

Her teenage son, Rene Charles, has stayed home here at Lake Las Vegas for now; although its said he will join his mother later on the tour schedule. As a ice-hockey fan and player he wanted to be here for the June 21 NHL Awards show and the reveal of the Vegas Golden Knights expansion team roster.

THE JURY SPEAKS: O.J. Simpson, who is serving a minimum nine-year prison sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center (Lovelock, Nevada, is 90 miles northeast of Reno) is one of the subjects of a unique new four-night television event about jury verdicts that stunned the nation. It will broadcast on the Oxygen network in July. My friend, Nancy Glass, and her Glass Entertainment Group are producing The Jury Speaks, which also introduces the juries of the Michael Jackson, George Zimmerman and Robert Durst cases. She told me that the new true-crime series re-examines the high-profile controversial cases through the eyes of the people who served on the original jury. When the O.J. Simpson episode airs July 23, jury members Lionel Cryer, Yolanda Crawford, David Aldana and Jeanette Harris recount the horrors of 10 months in sequestration and how the stress and isolation they faced affected Americas most controversial verdict .

O.J. was found not guilty for the brutal murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her companion, Ron Goldman. But he was found guilty of armed robbery at our Palace Station when he attempted to retrieve some of his belongings he claimed were being sold by memorabilia collectors. He received a maximum sentence of 33 years for carrying a loaded weapon into a Nevada casino and a minimum of nine years after which he would be eligible for parole. According to a LA Times report last September, he toils in the prison gym mopping floors and cleaning equipment.

This would be the first time the jurors have talked en masse about their experience and the trial that led to their surprising not guilty verdict in the murder case. Each juror will reveal what led them to their decision, if their vote would change today and how the aftermath of their verdicts subjected them to public ridicule, harassment and scorn.

It offers our viewers a fresh perspective on one of the most highly publicized trials in American history, said Oxygen medias vice president of original programming, Rod Aissa. In his statement he continued: The series will allow viewers to hear straight from the people whose decisions ignited controversy and sparked a heated debate at the water coolers and in homes across America.

O.J. (Prisoner 1027820) one of almost 1,700 inmates there in a town of just 2,000 is not expected to be able to watch the new series as it plays on premium cable but also because only 10 to 15 channels are approved for prisoners. The Juice will have served the minimum nine years of the sentence this coming October when he could be paroled. If denied his next opportunity for freedom would be in 2022.

200 SHOWS & A RENEWAL: Choreographer and producer Nanette Barbera will celebrate the 200th anniversary of her Solid Gold Soul show at Windows in Ballys on Thursday with a new six-month renewal. And she also broke the news to me that she will open Solid Gold Soul II up in Reno where her new ICandy show, featuring Baywatch beauty Angelica Bridges will open July 13, prior to it moving to Las Vegas later this year.

FLYING DRONES ON THE STRIP: The FAA has given permission to the new AviSight drone company to fly over the world famous Strip marking yet another critical milestone for the las Vegas based company. FAA regulatory guidance and the Strips proximity to McCarran airspace had previously limited permission for the iconic Vegas strip. My pal, sports agent J B Bernstein who lives here in Las vegas and created the Million Dollar Arm baseball reality TV show heads up AviSight. He told me : Safety is in our DNA.

AviSight has received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones over the world-famous Strip. It marks yet another critical milestone for the Las Vegas-based company. We are so proud and grateful that the FAA has granted us this permission, not only because it allows us to provide a great service to companies that want to showcase the centerpiece of our world-renowned city, but it once again illustrates that AVIsight is the leader in safe drone operations, J.B. said.

Here is a link to some new video AviSight recently shot on the Strip:

AviSight has a long list of firsts in the drone industry, including,

1) First to fly drones for Fox News live national broadcast, FOX NFL Sunday

2) First to fly drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) for cloud seeding

3) First to fly drones at night under the Nevada Institute of Autonomous Systems authorization

4) First to fly a commercial drone at a major air show, Thunder Over Louisville

Eric Preiss of the Nevada Film Office explained: Las Vegas Boulevard is one of the most iconic scenes in film and television. You cant recreate it on a sound stage or film it with a green screen. The safe operation of drones gives production companies so many different options to capture the beauty of the boulevard. AviSight has already begun filming and taking still photos for the city of Las Vegas, as well as several of the iconic hotel properties on the Strip.

MONTHS IN ADVANCE: The three-day Rt 91 Harvest country music festval with Jason Aldean, Eric Church and Sam Hunt set for Sept. 29 weekened has been completely sold out. The fourth annual festival sold out in previous years but this is the first time the two-stage festival has sold out four months in advance. Three years is not long when it comes to growth of a festival but this festival had a life of its own from the get-go, said Live Nations President of Country Touring, Brian OConnell. It is held at the Las Vegas Village grounds opposite the Luxor hotel.

Originally posted here:
Celine Dion's European tour begins - Las Vegas Review-Journal

After reading through the 61 pages of redacted content of the August 2016 DOD Inspector Generals report on the National Security Agencys (NSA) implementation of the Secure-the-Net initiative, acquired by The New York Times via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the only image one can conjure up is that of the Katzenjammer Kids running amok.

The NSA data protection (or lack thereof) was thrust into the spotlight when Edward Snowden, then a contractor in Hawaii, purloined 1.5m documents. How Snowden carried out his massive data collection is interesting, as he used his natural access and then conned his colleagues into giving up their internal access credentials in his role as the system admin. In the months that followed there were no shortage of opinions on how the NSA could or should tighten up its ship.

The Secure-the-Net (STN) initiative was launched post-Snowden, which included 40 specific recommendations focused on insider threats to NSA systems, data, and infrastructure. Seven of those recommendations were designed to secure network access, protect against insider threats and provide increased oversight of the personnel with privileged access.

The seven STN initiatives were:

The Department of Defense (DOD) report reviewed the NSAs progress on tightening up its ship with respect to the seven STN recommendations. The audit was conducted at four facilities between January and July of 2016.

The DOD report takes the NSA to the woodshed. Not because the NSA didnt attempt to implement, but rather, because they did a half-ass job in the implementation.

The reports scorching verbiage surrounds this partial implementation of the recommendations: for example, the

NSA did not effectively implement the three privileged access related STN initiatives because it did not develop an STN strategy that detailed a structured framework and methodology to implement the initiatives and measure completeness.

For example, with respect to two-factor authentication (2FA), the NSA implemented it for system admins, but not for those with privileged access. It is well documented how Snowden bypassed the then presentprivileged access controls and conned his colleagues into giving him their credentials which he then went on to use to expand his access.

A 2FA requirement would have required the owner of the credentials to have been participatory in Snowdens use of their credentials. NSA implementation as described in the report shows how they opted to leave open the very window that Snowden climbed through to harvest the data he stole.

Furthermore, the report goes on to chastise the NSA for not having a clue about how many individuals had privileged access in 2014, nor in 2016, and nor could the NSA document how the purge/pruning had been carried out. That meant the inspection team couldnt find out exactly how many people had privileged access.

While focus has largely been on the trusted insider gone bad, Edward Snowden, the Shadow Brokers acquisition of NSAs Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO)collection tools compromise clearly indicates a need by the NSA to continue to place their focus on locking down their own house.

How the TAO compromise occurred remains a mystery. It could have been an insider (contractor or staff) or it might have been a result of the contractor alleged to have built the exposed tools, the Equation Group, having themselves been hacked. Coincidentally, the inspector general report was published the week after the Shadow Brokers offered the TAO tools for auction. An active August 2016 indeed.

But what of the NSA contractor Harold Martin, another NSA insider?Martin, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, he was found to have hoarded up to 50 terabytes of NSA information. The indictment on Martin was sealed until October 2016, but he was arrested on 27 August 2016, yes two days prior to the arrival of the inspectors general report. August 2016 was truly a busy month in the world of espionage and counterespionage.

Is it hard to catch an insider?Yes, it is. If the individual does not exceed their natural access, process and procedures, they will be difficult to detect, and while it is safe to say that 100% is not achievable, there are steps which can be taken to secure the environment to bring the risk as close to zero as possible. This was the intent of the STN.

Has there been any good to come out of the STN? Absolutely, the National Industrial Security Program of the United States, marshaled by the Defense Security Service, has brought into play their mandatory insider threat program at all cleared facilities and contractors. These programs became mandatory on June 1 2017.

One might recall the recent arrest of NSA contractor, Reality Winner, also a contractor from Booz Allen Hamilton, who took a highly classified document assessing and discussing the Russian military intelligence entitys (the GRU) hand in meddling in the US election. Winner, using her privileged access, printed out the report, and then mailed it to a media outlet. Once the NSA saw the document, they quickly determined who had had access, who had printed the document and then who had had contact with a media outlet.

What they apparently werent able to do was to determine how and why Winner had privileged access to information to information about which she had no need to know.

One could argue this rapid-fire capability used to identify Winner would not have been present without the STN initiatives. On the other hand, one might surmise the privileged access portion of NSAs STN program continues to need tweaking.

Link:
NSA failed to implement security measures, says damning report - Naked Security

A declassified report from the Defense Department Inspector General has been released, according to the New York Times.

The 60-page report commissioned by Congress assesses 7 of the 40 components that the National Security Agency outlined for their Secure the Net initiative. This initiative was put forth to help improve the security of sensitive systems after the Snowden disclosures in 2013.

The NSA, according to the inspector generals report, had some successes, but the overall initiative did not fully meet the intent of decreasing the risk of insider threats to NSA operations and the ability of insiders to exfiltrate data.

According to the Times, the report details how their efforts fell short, including the failure to reduce the number of privileged users who can access sensitive computer systems; their failure to consistently keep data center machine rooms secure, as well as failing to lock the server racks containing highly classified data; and the failure to fully implement software that would monitor users.

The report also noted the agencys failure to declare an exact number of people with abilities to transfer data. The lists containing this information were kept on spreadsheets that were corrupted and are no longer available.

The inspector generals report noted that NSA CIO Gregory Smithberger told the inspector general that the elimination of all insider risks and threats is not feasible. He told the Times, While the media leak events that led to Secure the Net (STN) were both unforeseen and serious, we consider the extensive progress we made in a short time to be a good news story.

The importance of securing classified information, as the report warns, was underscored the same month the inspector generals report was produced, according to the Times. In August 2016, a group called the Shadow Brokers obtained and auctioned off classified hacking tools allegedly from the NSA some of which were dumped online. Those tools were later seen as part of the global WannaCry ransomware attack.

We welcome the observations and opportunities for improvement offered by the U.S. Defense Departments Inspector General, Vanee Vines, spokesperson for the NSA told the Times. NSA has never stopped seeking and implementing ways to strengthen both security policies and internal controls.

Read this article:
Secure the Net initiative found to be an overall failure for NSA - Federal Times