Thursday, April 10, 2014


News Clips For The Day



Teen Suspected in Stabbing Spree Will Be Charged As Adult – NBC
First published April 10 2014

The Pennsylvania teenager who is accused of stabbing and slashing schoolmates in an early morning rampage at his high school will be charged as an adult, authorities confirmed.

Alex Hribal, 16, will face four counts of attempted homicide and 21 counts of aggravated assault.

The Murrysville, Pa., teen allegedly stabbed or slashed 20 fellow students and a security guard at Franklin Regional Senior High School on Wednesday morning minutes before the school's opening bell.

At least five students were critically wounded, including a boy who was on a ventilator after a knife pierced his liver, missing his heart and aorta by only millimeters, doctors said.

The motive is under investigation.




The photograph of this young man showed a small and very young-looking person with a sad, angry look on his face. According to the morning news on NBC TV he is being examined to see if he is mentally sound enough to stand trial. One report on the net described him as “kind of nerdy,” and probably bullied and depressed. Another report mentioned a possibly threatening, definitely angry, telephone call to another student the night before.

I hope to see more articles later, giving more about this student. He wasn't considered to be a troublesome kid, but quiet and “nice.” His name Hribal is given on the net as being Bohemian, from an area in the modern Czech Republic, and his photograph shows even features with tan-toned skin and black hair, so he may have looked “different” to many of the other students, much like a Gypsy or someone of Islamic background.




How Did Amnesiac Dubbed 'John Smith' End Up 1K Miles From Home? – NBC
By Henry Austin
First published April 10 2014

An amnesiac dubbed “John Smith” after he turned up in a snowdrift four months ago has finally been identified.

The "man did not possess any form of identification, and did not remember his name, origin, how he ended up in Norway or any other details of his life" when he was discovered in mid-December, Oslo Police said in a release.

While he could think clearly, spoke good English and understood four other languages, the mystery man told investigators he had no idea about what had happened.
However, "John Smith" said he had been sexually assaulted and had "very bloody traces" on his wrists that suggested he may have been tied up with plastic strips, according to Agence France Presse.

This man was dubbed "John Smith" after being found in the snow in Oslo, Norway, in mid-December.

Investigators turned to international police organization Interpol and more than a dozen nations to compare fingerprints and DNA with their databases but were unable to unravel the mystery.

Repeated attempts to jog the man’s memory also failed. With his permission, police released a picture of "John Smith" on Tuesday.

A day later, they received a message from counterparts in the Czech Republic -- about 1,000 miles away from Norway -- that a couple had recognized him and said he was their son.

Oslo Police spokesman Sturla Henrkisbo told NBC News on Thursday that the force's violent and sexual crime unit was leading the investigation.
The man does not want his identity revealed, he added.




This amnesiac was discovered in Norway in mid-December. Police say he understands four languages, including good English, but could not remember what had happened to him except that he had been sexually assaulted. Police found marks on his wrists showing that his hands had been secured. Police contacted Interpol and his DNA and fingerprints were searched, revealing nothing. When the police released a picture of him they were contacted by his parents in the Czech Republic. Police are investigating the sex crime against him. He has requested that his identity not be revealed. Hopefully there will be more news about him as time goes on.





Elite FBI unit rescues N.C. kidnap victim Frank Arthur Janssen in Atlanta
CBS/AP April 10, 2014

ATLANTA -- An elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team has safely rescued a North Carolina kidnap victim from an apartment complex in Atlanta, days after the man was reported missing from his home, the FBI said Thursday.

Frank Arthur Janssen had been the target of a kidnapping plot and was safely rescued by the highly trained team shortly before noon on Wednesday from an apartment in the Georgia city, FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch said in a statement.

The statement said Janssen was reported missing April 5 from his Wake Forest, N.C., home. The FBI said a coordinated investigation by the FBI, Wake Forest police and other law enforcement agencies had determined that Janssen had been the victim of a kidnapping and was being held in an apartment complex in Atlanta's southeast section.
The statement said Janssen's family was notified of Janssen's rescue after the team freed the man at about 11:55 p.m. Wednesday. The FBI said the family looked forward to being reunited with him but that no further details were being released early Thursday amid what the agency described as an "active and ongoing" investigation.
Lynch told The Associated Press by phone early Thursday that she had no additional information to immediately release on the rescue and how it was carried out, a possible kidnapping motive or whether anyone had been hurt in the rescue or arrests made. She said a news conference was planned later Thursday in Wake Forest, N.C., by law enforcement officials.

Detectives said Janssen went on a bike ride around 9 a.m. Saturday and returned home, reports CBS Raleigh, N.C. station WRAL-TV. His wife later returned home from shopping and found what appeared to be drops of blood outside their house, Bill Crabtree, a spokesman for the Town of Wake Forest, said Tuesday.

Wake Forest police put out an alert asking for help from the public on Saturday afternoon and searched his home and questioned neighbors as the days passed.
Although Janssen commutes during the week to the Washington, D.C., area for his job at a national security consulting firm, investigators don't believe his disappearance is related to his work, Crabtree told WRAL.

The FBI describes its Hostage Rescue Team on the agency website as a national level counterterrorist unit, offering a tactical option for any extraordinary hostage crisis or other law enforcement situation in the U.S. The FBI says the unit, established in 1983, responds to the most urgent and complex FBI cases.




The FBI Hostage Rescue Team succeeded in releasing Frank Arthur Jansen, a worker at a national security consulting firm, from an Atlanta, GA apartment. How they rescued him or why he was kidnapped are not disclosed, but the FBI are heroes in this story. Many times on television mystery shows someone will be kidnapped and the police are not called. I would never try to cope with such a situation on my own, trusting the kidnappers to release my son or daughter. People fear calling in the police, but when the need for a well-armed and well-trained team occurs there is no one like the FBI to do the job.

Kidnappers can never be trusted not to kill their victims, even if the ransom is paid. The risk of angering them is beside the point – they are already “angered.” It's like the question of whether or not to fight back as fiercely and effectively as you can if you are being attacked by a mugger or a rapist. The time to fight back is at the very beginning, especially if you are in a city area where there is some chance that a bystander will see what is going on and call the police or render aid. When the rapist gets you to an isolated spot of his choice where he can execute the rape without interference, you will have a much worse chance of successfully preventing the attack and escaping.




Detroit police say mob attack on motorist may be hate crime
CBS News April 7, 2014

DETROIT - Two more suspects were arrested in a mob attack on a motorist who had struck a child and Detroit's police chief said Monday investigators were working to determine whether the brutal beating was a hate crime.

So far four suspects have been taken into custody in the beating of Steven Utash, 54, of Clinton Township, who remains in critical condition and in a medically inducted coma.

Police say Utash was driving his pickup truck on the east side of Detroit on April 2 when he struck a 10-year-old boy who had darted out into the street. When Utash got out of his vehicle to help the child, he was set upon by as many as a dozen men.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig said investigators were examining whether the attack should be treated as a hate crime. Utash is white and all the attackers were believed to be black.

"We're widening the scope of our investigation," Craig told The Detroit News. "Both our strategy and the prosecutor's strategy is widening, and those factors are being looked into very closely. I can't reveal some things about our investigation, but that (a hate crime classification) is definitely something we're considering."
In Michigan, ethnic intimidation is a felony that carries a possible two-year prison sentence. There are also federal hate crime laws.

Craig dismissed suggestions that the beating was a case of vigilantism. He said Utash was not at fault. Police have previously said that the driver was not to blame for the accident, and that he did the right thing in remaining on the scene and trying to help the victim.

"What happened to that man was tragic, and should not have happened," the police chief said.

Utash's son said Monday he believes the attack was a hate crime.
"It has to be a racial thing," Joe Utash told CBS Detroit's Newsradio 950.
The son said he had watched videos of the attack.

"There's people that literally just pulled up at that gas station to get out of their car and walk around their car to go up to my dad and kick him, and just kick him over and over and over again," Joe Utash said.

Police said two men, ages 24 and 30, were arrested Monday in connection with the attack. Their names were not immediately released.

Two teenagers were taken into custody over the weekend. Bruce Edward Wimbush Jr., 17, was charged with assault with intent to murder and assault with intent to do great bodily harm, prosecutors said Monday. The younger boy, who is 16, was not immediately charged but was being held at a juvenile detention facility.

The 10-year-old who was struck by Utash's pickup suffered a broken leg. Joe Utash told WWJ that the boy's family had asked to meet with Utash's family members, but he said he wouldn't want a meeting until the investigation was over.

Deborah Hughes, a nurse, was apparently the only bystander to come to Utash's aid. She said she told the attackers to back off the already seriously injured man.
"He was bleeding, he had a big gash on the side of his head and he couldn't take any more licks and I wasn't willing to stand there and let them keep beating him," Hughes told WWJ's Newsradio 950.

She said Utash lost consciousness but when he came to, he repeatedly asked if the boy was OK.

"He was so traumatized, this man was like, 'Is he all right? Is he all right? Oh Lord, tell me he's OK. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said. "He didn't drive off. He got out the truck and he walked back, and they just beat him like he was nothing."
Craig, the police chief, blamed a "culture of violence" for the attack.

"I' ve not seen this kind of violent culture in other cities," he told the Detroit News. "It certainly exists, but not to this extent. ... This happens in other places, too, but it's all too common here. And Detroiters are getting fed up. They're tired of being victims."

Utash, a self-employed tree trimmer, does not have health insurance, according to relatives. A campaign set up online had raised more than $126,000 as of Monday evening to help cover his medical expenses. Family members say the cost of his treatments runs from $17,000 to $20,000 per day.




“In Michigan, ethnic intimidation is a felony that carries a possible two-year prison sentence. There are also federal hate crime laws.” People gathered from the nearby area to join in the assault. “Deborah Hughes, a nurse, was apparently the only bystander to come to Utash's aid. She said she told the attackers to back off the already seriously injured man.” This shows what a bystander can do simply by stepping forward to assist, and in this case when she simply told them to stop the attack they did. In those bullying cases so often reported, if one bystander would step in verbally and possibly physically, the attack is likely to be stopped.

“Craig, the police chief, blamed a "culture of violence" for the attack.” This is something that I don't hear very often when something like this occurs, but there is such a thing as “a culture of violence,” and the US has always included this, from the lynchings of as recent a period as fifty years ago to the so-called “knockout” attacks among today's young men. Craig states that Detroit has more than its share of violent episodes. “Detroiters are getting fed up. They're tired of being victims."





US Destroyer Headed to Black Sea to Reassure Allies – ABC
By Luis Martinez
Apr 10, 2014

In the latest sign of support for NATO allies in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook will enter the Black Sea on Thursday to participate in exercises with regional partners. It is unclear how long the destroyer will remain in the Black Sea.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren announced Wednesday that the destroyer would enter the Black Sea on Thursday for unspecified exercises with partner nations in the Black Sea region. He said the ship’s presence in the Black Sea “demonstrates our commitment to our allies and to enhance security readiness in the region.”

A statement from U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa said “Donald Cook’s mission is to reassure NATO allies of the U.S. Navy’s commitment to strengthen and improve interoperability while working toward mutual goals in the region.”

Ever since Russian troops first appeared in Crimea in February, the United States has sought to reassure NATO allies by raising its military profile in Eastern Europe .
In early March, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered aviation units to Poland and Lithuania to bolster existing operations, with 12 F-16s and 200 airmen sent to Poland on an open-ended training schedule, augmenting a 10-man aviation detachment based in that country for rotating U.S. exercises.  An additional six F-15 fighters were also sent to Lithuania to augment the four U.S. F-15s participating in NATO’s Baltic Air Policing Mission.

The likelihood that another U.S. Navy ship was headed to the Black Sea emerged last week, but Defense officials were wary of identifying the ship because of potential schedule conflicts. The destroyer USS Truxtun was in the Black Sea for two weeks in March conducting exercises with Romanian and Bulgarian navy ships. Although the Navy says it is routine for its ships to enter the Black Sea, those visits do not typically take place weeks apart.

Russia’s massing of 40,000 troops  along its  border with eastern Ukraine for what it calls military exercises spurred words of caution from senior U.S. and NATO officials concerned that the troops might push into eastern Ukraine.

Amid those concerns, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove was asked by NATO to develop additional military options to reassure the alliance’s eastern European members.  He is expected to present those options to the  NATO Council on April 15.

For now, the exercises the Donald Cook will be participating in have yet to be defined and it remains unclear how long the ship will remain in the Black Sea. The destroyer is the first of four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to have been deployed to its new home port of Rota, Spain.

Also on Thursday, six F-16s and 180 airmen based at Aviano, Italy will arrive in Romania for a week-long exercise with the Romanian air force that was planned months before the current crisis in Ukraine.




U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook has been sent to the Black Sea for joint military exercises. The report says it is unclear how long it will stay. U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa says the intent is to reassure NATO allies “while working toward mutual goals in the region.” A month ago fighters and airmen have been sent to Poland and Lithuania, and the Destroyer USS Truxtun was doing exercises with the navies of Romania and Bulgaria in the middle of March. The NATO Supreme Commander is expected to present more military options on April 15. No direct interaction with Ukraine or a long-term settling of forces in Balkan countries has been mentioned in this article. I think these moves are both timely and welcome. We need to do more than merely scolding the Russians.





'Heartbleed' Online Bug: How to Protect Yourself – ABC
By ZUNAIRA ZAKI (@ZunairaZaki)
April 9, 2014

An online bug called "Heartbleed" is affecting a huge chunk of the Internet, which means that a password change is likely in order for hundreds of millions of people.

More than half a million sites are vulnerable that use the security system called Open SSL, according Netcraft, and have had to install a new security patch. Before this patch, private data on websites such as Yahoo, Google and Tumblr could have been vulnerable to hackers, experts said. This bug was discovered by a team of security engineers at tech company Codenomicon and Neel Mehta of Google Security.

Joost Bijl, a product manager with the cybersecurity firm Fox IT, said that affected websites should be letting consumers know that a fix has been installed. But, so far it does not appear that any major website besides Tumblr have reached out to consumers.

Here's what you should know about "Heartbleed" and some ways to protect yourself:

1.
Tumblr
Tumblr issued a warning on Tuesday, saying the blog site has "no evidence of any breach and, like most networks, our team took immediate action to fix the issue," but users should change all their passwords.

2.
This Is Serious
Codenomicon set up a Heartbleed info website, saying, "Considering the long exposure, ease of exploitation and attacks leaving no trace this exposure should be taken seriously."

Codenomicon CEO David Chartier said that users on impacted websites should change their passwords, but only once the site administrators have appropriately installed the patch to fix the problem. It doesn’t help to change the password if the site has not been updated, though Chartier estimated that the fix is probably already in place on most of the major websites. The problem has been around for two years and was discovered last Friday, he said.

Chartier also said their investigation shows that Open SSL is used by at least 66 percent of all servers on the Internet.

3.
Facebook
A Facebook spokesperson said the company "added protections for Facebook’s implementation of OpenSSL before this issue was publicly disclosed, and we’re continuing to monitor the situation closely."

"We haven’t detected any signs of suspicious account activity that would suggest a specific action, but we encourage people to take this opportunity to follow good practices and set up a unique password for your Facebook account that you don’t use on other sites," the Facebook spokesperson said.

4.
Google
A Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement, “The security of our users' information is a top priority. We proactively look for vulnerabilities and encourage others to report them precisely so that we are able to fix them before they are exploited. We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.”

They later added to their statement saying that, "The security of our users' information is a top priority. We fixed this bug early and Google users do not need to change their passwords."

Google also posted a blog today detailing the fix for the big and pointing out that Android users are not vulnerable.

5.
Yahoo
In a statement, Yahoo said, “A vulnerability, called Heartbleed, was recently identified impacting many platforms that use Open SSL, including ours."
The company said it has "successfully made the appropriate corrections across the main Yahoo properties (Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Food, Yahoo Tech, Flickr and Tumblr) and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now. We’re focused on providing the most secure experience possible for our users worldwide and are continuously working to protect our users’ data.”

6.
Beware
Mark McCurley, senior information security advisor at Identity Theft 911, said Lastpass.com/heartbleed can help you check to see if a site is vulnerable. You can also ask the company or website if they have fixed potential flaws, then update to a strong password, using numbers, upper case, lower case and symbols, McCurley said.
People should also be wary of phishing emails that trick you into revealing your passwords to scammers.

7.
Main Takeaways From an Expert
Security expert Brian Krebs, who broke the news of Target's massive security breach last year, said hundreds of millions of users are impacted by this problem. He offered three main takeaways:
• This highlights the danger of using the same password over and over again for all your sites.
• Using same username and same password on multiple sites that hold valuable information is a bad idea.
• For banking and email you should have different usernames and passwords.

8.
And Lastly ...
Krebs advised people on Tuesday to avoid logging into sites that have critical personal information. It's never a bad idea to change passwords for important services and sites, he said.




“Joost Bijl, a product manager with the cybersecurity firm Fox IT, said that affected websites should be letting consumers know that a fix has been installed. But, so far it does not appear that any major website besides Tumblr have reached out to consumers.” Codenomicon set up a Heartbleed info website, http://heartbleed.com/. CEO David Chartier said for Internet users to wait until each site has installed its patch, and then change passwords with a different password for each site. Mark McCurley, of Identity Theft 911 offers this website for easy identification of which websites are vulnerable, Lastpass.com/heartbleed, suggesting that users ask the websites whether they have fixed the flaw or not and if so, change their password.