Arrivederci Palermo! ...Ciao Bello?

Intro: Bleeping Computer has reached out to the company that responded to the incident and currently performs the IT services restoration, SISPI, and we will update this post as soon as we receive a response.

Italian city of Palermo shuts down all systems to fend off cyberattack

Bill Toulas

BleepingComputer |

The municipality of Palermo in Southern Italy suffered a cyberattack on Friday, which appears to have had a massive impact on a broad range of operations and services to both citizens and visiting tourists.

Palermo is home to about 1.3 million people, the fifth most populous city in Italy. The area is visited by another 2.3 million tourists every year.

Although local IT experts have been trying to restore the systems for the past three days, all services, public websites, and online portals remain offline.

According to multiple local media outlets, the impacted systems include the public video surveillance management, the municipal police operations center, and all of the municipality’s services.

It’s impossible to communicate or request any service that relies on digital systems, and all citizens have to use obsolete fax machines to reach public offices. . .

Ransomware or DDoS?

Italy recently received threats from the Killnet group, a pro-Russian hacktivist who attacks countries that support Ukraine with resource-depleting cyberattacks known as DDoS (distributed denial of service).

While some were quick to point the finger at Killnet, the cyberattack on Palermo bears the signs of a ransomware attack rather than a DDoS.

The councilor for innovation in the municipality of Palermo, Paolo Petralia Camassa, has stated that all systems were cautiously shut down and isolated from the network while he also warned that the outage might last for a while.

This is a typical response to a ransomware attack, with networks being taken offline to prevent the malware from spreading to more computers and encrypting files.

If this cyberattack turns out to be ransomware, the gang responsible for it might have managed to steal data to conduct double-extortion, which commonly accompanies these attacks.

In that case, Palermo could face the prospect of a severe data breach affecting a large number of individuals and potentially also incurring fines for GDPR violations. . ."

RELATED:

Russian hacktivists launch DDoS attacks on Romanian govt sites

Bill Toulas

BleepingComputer

Killnet's announcement

The same group has previously launched DDoS attacks against sites in the U.S., Czech, Estonian, German, and Polish sites, all for similar political reasons, requesting to stop the supply of military weapons and equipment to Ukraine.

Related Articles:

Costa Rica declares national emergency after Conti ransomware attacks

New Black Basta ransomware springs into action with a dozen breaches

American Dental Association hit by new Black Basta ransomware

Wind turbine firm Nordex hit by Conti ransomware attack

Hackers use Conti's leaked ransomware to attack Russian companies 

 

Dust Off That Dirty Word Detente and Engage With China | Niall Ferguson Opinion Piece via Bloomberg

Historian and author Niall Ferguson continues to be a feature in many posts on this blog - here's one more for your interest

Opinion

Niall Ferguson

Dust Off That Dirty Word Detente and Engage With China

Joe Biden's grand strategy is setting the US and Beijing on a collision course. It's bad foreign policy and terrible domestic politics

ByNiall Ferguson

June 5, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC

"Is détente still a dirty word? I hope not. We may soon need it.

Back in the 1970s, that little French duosyllable was almost synonymous with “Kissinger.” Despite turning 99 last month, the former secretary of state has not lost his ability to infuriate people on both the right and the left — witness the reaction to his suggestion at the World Economic Forum that “the dividing line [between Russia and Ukraine] should return to the status quo ante” because “pursuing the war beyond that point could turn it into a war not about the freedom of Ukraine … but into a war against Russia itself.”

RELATED  >>

May 25, 2022

Dr Henry Kissinger full speech at Davos' 22 World economic forum

www.youtube.com › watch

43 minutes ago · Dr Henry Kissinger full speech at Davos' 22 World economic forum. 1 view May 28, 2022 … ...more ...more. Show less.

>  

RELATED CONTENT

Kissinger: These are the main geopolitical challenges facing the world right now........

=====================================================================

22 July 2021

STREAMING: Henry Kissinger: How Biden should handle China | The Economist

The uploaded video can be viewed farther down. For your interest ahead of time, here are interesting reads from earlier posts on this blog via Niall Ferguson:

You cannot understand the world today without understanding how it has changed as a result of new information technology. This has become a truism. The question is, how has it changed? The answer is that technology has enormously empowered networks of all kinds relative to traditional hierarchical power structures.
The reality is that the global network has become a dangerously unstable structure. Far from promoting equality, the network does the opposite, by allowing hyperconnected “superhubs” to emerge.

Far from spreading truth and love, the network excels at disseminating lies and hate, because those are the things we nasty, fallen human beings like to click on. If Zuckerberg seriously intends to turn Facebook into the vanguard of liberal world government, then he is on a fast track to joining George Soros at the top of Steve Bannon’s Most Hated list.

Niall Ferguson’s new book, “The Square and the Tower: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Networks,’’ will be published early next year.

 

================================================================

 

=====================================================================

29 May 2022

INTERNATIONAL REALISM: World Economic Forum Davos 2022

Intro: In fact, Kissinger was speaking like the adherent, which he has always been, of “international realism”—the school of thought that values stability above all else and, in that spirit, touts the interests of great powers and their spheres of interest over the ambitions (however lofty) of less mighty countries.

A different quotation: "Mr. Kissinger, a high priest of realpolitik, is no stranger to controversy. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam, critics complained, pointing to the devastating U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia during his tenure. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned in protest."

>

 

>

When Henry Kissinger gives advice on ending the Ukraine conflict, the West should listen

The realpolitik veteran schools today’s ideologues, but they won’t like the lesson

 

TRYING TO DETERMINE THE TRUTH

Check out the full interview, which also included former Nixon administration White House counsel John Dean, in the clip below

Jan. 6 Committee Has Enough To Nail 'Seditious' Trump, Carl Bernstein Says

Trump "attempted to stage this coup so there would be no real election," and he would stay in power, the Watergate sleuth said.

By Mary Papenfuss Trends Reporter, HuffPost

HuffPost

Legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is convinced the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, has what it needs to expose the culpability of “seditious” former President Donald Trump in last year’s Capitol riot.

“What we have is really a seditious president of the United States trying to foment insurrection to keep his successor from taking office, staging a coup,” Bernstein told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday. . .

Bernstein’s old Watergate partner Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward agreed on Cooper’s program that the stakes are high.

“It is a crime to subvert the lawful function of government,” said Woodward. “It is not ambiguous. It goes back 100 years ... this is exactly the sort of trickery and deceit that is a crime.”

“We have in hand all the evidence, and the Justice Department realizes this, as does the Jan. 6th committee, to show that this was an organized conspiracy to subvert democracy. Can’t say it any more directly,” he added.

Bernstein said Trump “did something no president has ever done. He said: ‘I’m going to stay here behind this desk, I am not going to admit that I lost the election. I am going to stay here and remain the president of the United States past the point where Joe Biden, the elected president of the United States, was supposed to take office.’”

This is a “conspiracy led by a president of the United States such as we have never seen,” he added. “That is why Trump is a seditious president.”

Americans are now in a “territory we have never seen,” made even “more remarkable” by the Republican Party, Bernstein said. The party that “helped push Richard Nixon out of office and forced him to resign” after Watergate “today is supporting Donald Trump, supporting his insurrection, trying to undermine the Jan. 6th committee.”

Instead of the institutions of government trying to determine the “truth about what happened ... we now have one of the political parties dedicated to suppressing the truth,” Bernstein warned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TROUBLING DATA FOR MESA SCHOOL OFFICIALS....A Report with No Comments

Here's a TOP STORY report

top story            

Some troubling data for Mesa school officials 

By Scott Shumaker, Tribune Staff Writer Jun 5, 2022        

"Parents, teachers and leaders hoped this school year would finally bring normalcy for Mesa Public Schools’ 56,000 students, but data presented by administrators to the Governing Board at a May 31 study session suggest that 2021-22 may have been just as rocky as previous years of the pandemic – or worse.

Problems aggravated by the pandemic, like chronic absenteeism and misconduct, persisted into this year, with 38% of MPS students absent for more than 10% of school days in 2021-22.

“This is way, way too many – way too many – of our kids” absent from school, board President Jenny Richardson said.

Other metrics of student well-being failed to improve this year, and the data includes signs that the pandemic affected students’ mental health. . .

DATA: Recently released data from state assessments taken near the end of the school year showed progress in some areas, but disappointments in others.

> On the positive side, a higher percentage of MPS third-graders passed the English Language assessment this year, 39%, compared to 32% last year, as well as the math test, 36% versus 35% last year.

> But in data that Assistant Superintendent Randy Mahlerwein described as “disappointing,” MPS ninth-graders scored below the state average on the ACT Aspire assessment in all four categories: English, reading, science and math.

> Kelly Berg, preaident of the Mesa Education Association, told the Tribune: "At just a brief glance, it looks like the high schools are performing how they have been performing in years prior to COVID compared to each other.  "This was a new benchmark test for our students to take this year," she continued.

" I think it will take some digging into the data at each school to see where we can improve for our individual schools. . ."

> t will be difficult to find the time to dig in to the assessment, locate/create materials to support the students, and implement the support while trying to cover the state standards."

John Water's New Book: LIARMOUTH

Let's go there!

Politics

Filmmaker John Waters Complains Trump Forever Ruined Bad Taste

The former president destroyed the humor, the filmmaker grumbles

 

By Mary Papenfuss Trends Reporter, HuffPost

Jun. 4, 2022, 11:58 PM EDT | Updated a day ago

HuffPost

"King of camp filmmaker John Waters complained in an interview published Saturday that former President Donald Trump has ruined the quirky, kinky allure of bad taste for all eternity. . .“As soon as Trump was president, it just ended the humor of it. He was the nail in the coffin,” Waters added.

 “He’s the first person that had accidental bad taste that wasn’t funny.”

The cinematic queer visionary — who wielded his dark humor and camp aesthetic in decades of memorable movies from “Pink Flamingos” to “Female Trouble,” the original 1988 “Hairspray” and “Cry-Baby” — grumbled that Trump broke all the rules.

. . .“Usually, accidental bad taste is what camp originally meant,” he said. “But today, people try too hard. And I think that never works. Because true camp is innocent, it doesn’t do things on purpose. It takes itself very seriously.” . .

>> “A lot of stuff that happens is pretty hideous, and pretty unimaginable. But that’s what makes me feel good because I read a book to go into another world or enter someone else’s universe. Even if I’m horrified by it, I love that.” He becomes more passionate as he explains the core tenet of Liarmouth, and all his work: “I don’t buy fiction to make myself ‘feel good’ or go to the movies to ‘feel good’. People who say: ‘Oh, I go to the movies to feel good’… Well, I always move away from that person.”

>> Does his work, with all its feel-bad twists and turns, ever surprise Waters himself? “That’s my job, thinking up fucked-up things. That’s what I do for a living. So that doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is when I can make myself laugh out loud. Well, then I know it really is a good joke, because that’s very hard to do.” He chuckles again. The Waters chuckle, by the way, is a thing of beauty. It’s tempting to editorialise and say he has a filthy laugh but, actually, it’s more impish than that. He’s a puckish figure, capable of finding humour in some of the worst aspects of humanity . . .He does have red lines, though. “The things I’m shocked about are always stupid things, like this idiot racist who just killed people [in Buffalo, New York, last month]. I mean, that’s shocking to me, but not in a good way.”

Let's snag some lines from the interview by Catherine Bray [Check out the full interview.]

John Waters: ‘Trump ruined bad taste – he was the nail in the coffin’

Catherine Bray

the Guardian

Sat 4 Jun 2022 08.00 EDT

 ____". . .If that’s the case, then Waters himself cannot be described as camp, as much as he is an eternal queer icon, because he absolutely refuses to take things too seriously. Is he worried about offending people? “Well, I think Liarmouth is weird but I don’t think it’s offensive in political correctness ways, and if it is, I’m making a joke about it. I am parodying everything. I think I’m parodying writing a novel in the first place, by even calling it a ‘feel-bad romance’, something that no one would put on their book.”

Liarmouth

 is out now. John Waters’ show False Negative is at the Barbican Hall, London, 10 June

================================================================================================================================================================================

HERE'S MORE FROM THE INTERVIEW:

". . .Even if you have never seen one of Waters’ dozen feature films, you’ve probably sensed his presence. For a director whose early work saw him tagged variously as the Pope of Trash, the Sultan of Sleaze, the Duke of Dirt, the Baron of Bad Taste, the King of Puke and Queer Confucius, he is blessed with a level of influence that belies his outsider status. Perhaps that’s because he’s not confined to the midnight movie circuit: a talented conceptual artist, he’s also an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. The Baltimore Museum of Art’s bathrooms are named after the man, for crying out loud.

But speaking to Waters, you would never guess you were encountering someone so revered. As per usual, he is in Baltimore, Maryland, where he has essentially lived for his entire life, enjoying his status as the city’s patron sinner. His manner throughout an hour spent chatting is mild, engaged and perpetually amused. Despite the title of his last nonfiction book, Mr Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, it doesn’t feel as though he is making any great claims to having things all figured out. Perhaps that’s because he’s just done something he’s never done before. Meet John Waters: debut novelist.

 

The novel in question, Liarmouth, is Waters to its core. Anything can and does happen, in an anarchic, zesty burlesque that takes the reader on a tour through subcultures as diverse as a rimming rights group, a plastic surgery outfit for pets, a feral pack of trampoline-addiction advocates and the underground world of baggage carousel suitcase heists. It is available now from all good bookshops.

SHENZHOU-14 MISSION

Intro:

Filed under:

• Science
• Tech
• Space

Chinese astronauts arrive at Tiangong space station to prepare for its completion

0 New, 2 comments

Two additional modules are set to arrive in July and October

By Emma Roth Jun 5, 2022, 10:22am EDT

(A Long March 2F rocket with the Shenzhou 14 spacecraft takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Photo by VCG/VCG)

  

The Verge |

"Three Chinese astronauts, or taikonauts, arrived at the Tianhe core module of the unfinished Tiangong space station on Sunday morning, where they’ll stay for six months to help finish its construction (via Space.com). The Shenzhou 14 spacecraft took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Saturday at 10:44PM ET (10:44AM local time) and docked with Tianhe at 5:42AM ET (5:42PM local time).

The three-person crew includes Chen Dong, Cai Xuzhe, and Liu Yang, who originally made history as the first Chinese woman in space during the country’s Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012. While they’re in orbit, the crew is expected to conduct several spacewalks and prepare the station for the arrival of two additional lab modules, with the Wentian module set to launch next month and the Mengtian in October. As noted by Space.com, the two modules will attach to opposite sides of the Tianhe core module to create a T-shaped station that will be smaller than the International Space Station (ISS).

China aims to complete the construction of Tiangong by the end of this year, with the launch of the Xuntian telescope module slated for 2023. Shenzhou 14 is China’s third crewed mission to the space station since the launch of the Tianhe module in April 2021. This latest trio is set to welcome the Shenzhou 15 crew aboard the station towards the end of this year, marking the first time the station will hold six people."

RELATED CONTENT

VIDEO INSERTS (3)

China's Shenzhou-14 crewed spaceship docks with space station module - CGTN

news.cgtn.com › news › 2022-06-05 › China-s-Shenzhou-14-crewed-space...

6 hours ago · China's Shenzhou-14 spaceship, with three astronauts aboard, has docked with Tianhe ...
Duration: 0:55
Posted: 6 hours ago

China's Shenzhou-14 Crewed Spaceship Docks with Space Station Module - YouTube

www.youtube.com › watch

7 hours ago · Congratulations to Shenzhou 14 successful docking to the space station Tianhe. Well done.
Duration: 1:44
Posted: 7 hours ago

Special coverage of China's Shenzhou-14 docking with space station module - YouTube

www.youtube.com › watch

9 hours ago · 37 waiting Scheduled for Jun 5, 2022 #China's #Shenzhou14 crewed spaceship docks with ...
Duration: 23:36
Posted: 9 hours ago

 

China sends crewed mission to complete Tiangong space station

China has launched a rocket carrying three astronauts on a mission to complete construction on its new space station.

aljazeera.com

The rocket carrying the Shenzhou-14 mission with three Chinese astronauts lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu province on June 5, 2022, the latest milestone in Beijing's drive to become a major space power [China OUT via AFP]

". . .The Shenzhou-14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, during which it will oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to join the main Tianhe living space that was launched in April 2021.

A Long March-2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in northwest China at 10:44am (02:44 GMT) with the spacecraft Shenzhou-14, or “Divine Vessel”, and its three astronauts, a live broadcast by state television showed. . .

The space station, when completed by the year-end, will lay a significant milestone in China’s three-decade-long crewed space programme, first approved in 1992.

The completion of the structure, about a fifth of the International Space Station (ISS) by mass, is a source of pride among common Chinese people, and caps President Xi Jinping’s 10 years as leader of the ruling Communist Party.

“The Shenzhou-14 mission is a pivotal battle in the construction stage of China’s space station,” Chen told a news conference in Jiuquan on Saturday. “The task will be tougher, there will be more problems and the challenges will be greater.”

The 43-year-old said the arrival of the new modules will “provide more stability, more powerful functions, more complete equipment”.

Liu, 43, is also a space veteran and was China’s first female astronaut to reach space on board the Shenzhou-9 in 2012. Cai, 46, is making his first space trip.

They will also install equipment inside and outside the space station and carry out a range of scientific research.

China’s space programme launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, making it only the third country to do so on its own after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

It has landed robot rovers on the moon and placed one on Mars last year. China has also returned lunar samples and officials have discussed a possible crewed mission to the moon.

China’s space programme is run by the Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, prompting the US to exclude it from the ISS.

Chen, Liu and Cai will be joined at the end of their mission for three to five days by the crew of the upcoming Shenzhou-15, marking the first time the station will have had six people on board.

The space station is designed for a lifespan of at least 10 years."

Related: The latest news about China's space program

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: 5 Days of Faded Glory in A Collective Mis-Remembering of Empire

Intro: ". . .Around the world, as evidenced by the protests during recent royal tours of the Caribbean and the determination expressed by those nations to rid themselves of the queen as head of state, the demand for an acknowledgement of the truth and for justice is building steam.

If the UK persists in trying to hide from its dark past, it risks its international reputation and standing being consumed by it."

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: A collective misremembering of empire

The queen today is the Dr Jekyll to the UK’s Mr Hyde – encapsulating the glory and benevolence of empire with the evil separated out.

[Patrick Gathara/Al Jazeera]

 

Patrick Gathara

aljazeera.com |

In his 1886 Gothic novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson tells the tale of Dr Henry Jekyll, wealthy, well-born, and highly respected, who develops a potion that enables him to separate his evil desires from the control of his good self, thus giving rise to the grotesque and deformed Edward Hyde. Jekyll believes that he can receive the pleasure that both parts of his being crave without each being encumbered by the demands of the other.

Watching media coverage of festivities marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee – 70 years since she acceded to the throne – I could not help feeling that the British state had achieved something similar. The pomp and circumstance surrounding the celebrations, from the marching troops to beacons lit around the world, were undoubtedly reminiscent of the long-faded glories of the empire, which today are personified by the queen and her family. However, the memory of the horrors that empire visited on millions around the globe – where, to borrow Jekyll’s description of his alter-ego Hyde, “evil … had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay” – was almost completely absent from the telling.

> It was during a visit to Kenya in February 1952 that she learned of her father’s death and became queen. . .The romanticised tale of the girl who went up a tree a princess and descended a queen tends to ignore the circumstances she was thrust into as well as the death, torture, brutalisation and dispossession of Kenyans that would mark the first decade of her reign. Needless to say, little of that made it into the Platinum Jubilee brochure.

> A large part of the international media seemed to obsess over the reactions of four-year-old Prince Louis to the Royal Air Force (RAF) flypast, his facial expressions drawing “howls of delight and amusement from the watching crowd”. In November 1953, nearly two years into Elizabeth’s reign, my father would have been about the same age as Prince Louis. I doubt many journalists would spend any time imagining his reactions over the next 20 months as RAF planes flew over the concentration camps into which the British had forced 1.5 million people and dropped nearly six million bombs on Kenyans demanding their land and freedom. I imagine they would have been very different. . .

[.    ] Her Platinum Jubilee is a call to a collective misremembering of her imperial past and the violence and misery the state she heads and represents has wrought in the world. But like Jekyll, the supply of carefully crafted falsehoods keeping the Hyde-bound truth at bay is running out. Around the world, as evidenced by the protests during recent royal tours of the Caribbean and the determination expressed by those nations to rid themselves of the queen as head of state, the demand for an acknowledgement of the truth and for justice is building steam. If the UK persists in trying to hide from its dark past, it risks its international reputation and standing being consumed by it."

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.