Welcome to Police Blues News Archives. Articles are indexed alphabetically.

Border Patrol Swears in First Class of Fiscal Year

Congressional Child Predator Exposed

FBI Presents Certificates for Exceptional Service to Microsoft

North Korea Claims "Declaration of War"

Obama Sweeps Idaho

Congressional Child Predator Exposed by Bill Crimi  

Oct.2006__Rep. Mark Foley R-Fla. resigned from Congressional office after information obtained by news services indicated that, he sexually solicited underage Congressional Pages in Washington DC. Evidence has surfaced that House Speaker Dennis Hastert R-Ill. and others on the hill knew of Foley's misconduct for years without taking appropriate action. He was even allowed to continue at his appointed post as Sub-Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children over-site committee.

     House members are scrambling in a disgraceful damage control scenario in order to try and protect their incumbencies for the up-coming November elections. This latest Capital Hill expose' of sleaze-balls follows in the tracks of recent indictments against many other delegates and their cohorts who participated in un-ethical practices and outright criminal activity against the American public.

     House Speaker Rep. Hastert of Illinois has appeared on camera acting like a babbling buffoon, stammering and stumbling on excuses in defense of his less than adequate actions on the matter. He has announced his intention to seek re-election and election as Speaker regardless of his gross failure to aggressively protect young people under his care from a depraved and indifferent individual who served under him.

     Police Blues encourages members of Law Enforcement, to remember these recent atrocities against us and our families when stepping into the voting booth in the future. We also encourage Police Organizations to refrain from endorsing political candidates who walk a good talk but, have a history of not walking the talk. We owe it to the future of our children who these malefactors obviously choose to ignore. Burn their names into your memory and the names of their self-serving cohorts as well, who are equally guilty of crimes against our families.

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FBI Presents Certificates for "Exceptional Service" to Microsoft
Employees for Their Role in the Mytob/Zotob Investigation

Washington, D.C. — On behalf of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director James E. Finch today presented certificates for "Exceptional Service in the Public Interest" to nine Microsoft employees for their assistance in the swift resolution of the 2005 Mytob/Zotob computer worm investigation.

Assistant Director Finch said, "The Microsoft employees played a vital role in the investigation which ultimately led to the capture of three individuals responsible for authoring and controlling the Mytob/Zotob computer worm that adversely affected more than 100 U.S. companies including national news organizations."

Two of the individuals, Farid Essebar and Achraf Bahloul were arrested in Morocco, the third, Atilla Ekici, was arrested in Turkey. Essebar and Bahloul have since been convicted and sentenced by a Moroccan court for conspiracy, theft, using forged credit cards, and illegal access to computer systems. Essebar was sentenced to two years and Bahloul was sentenced to one year in prison. The charges against Ekici are still pending with Turkish authorities.

Receiving certificates today were the following Microsoft employees:

Brad Smith, Senior Vice President
Tim Cranton, Senior Director
Scott Stein, Senior Attorney
Steve Santorelli, Senior Manager, Investigations
Frank Swiderski, Security Software Engineer
Rob Vucic, Security Software Engineer
Simona Long, Investigator
Stirling McBride, Senior Manager, Investigations
Val Saengphaibul, Technical Analyst

Assistant Director Finch said, "What happened in this case is a textbook example of the cooperation necessary in this new era of globalization to be successful in addressing computer intrusions and other computer-supported criminal operations. In Microsoft, we have an excellent partner and today we acknowledge them in this small way."

Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, said, "Microsoft is honored that Assistant Director Finch came to Redmond to recognize our employees who assisted in the Zotob investigation. The result of that collaboration is an excellent example of how the public and private sectors can and should work together to fight cyber crime. Microsoft will continue to support law enforcement worldwide to identify and hold responsible those who engage in cyber crime."

Background on the investigation:

In mid-August, 2005, the Internet worm named "ZOTOB" was released and subsequently identified by anti-virus companies. Similarities between ZOTOB and a previously known worm, MYTOB, suggested the same authors had developed and were controlling both.

On August 22, 2005, one FBI team was deployed to Rabat, Morocco and one FBI team was deployed to Ankara, Turkey. The teams were made up of FBI investigators, FBI malicious code experts, and computer forensic experts.

On August 23 and 24, FBI teams in both countries briefed and held meetings with U.S. Embassy officials and host country law enforcement. These meetings were used to brief the search, arrest, investigative, and technical details.

On August 25, 2005, Turkish and Moroccan authorities executed search and arrest warrants on two individuals responsible for the creation of the W32.Zotob variant. Turkish authorities arrested a 21-year old resident of Turkey named Atilla Ekici, aka "Coder." Ekici traded stolen credit cards for the use of the Mytob and Zotob worms. Moroccan authorities arrested 18-year old Farid Essebar, aka "Diabl0", who wrote the W32.Zotob worm for financial motives. Shortly after, Essebar's friend, Achraf Bahloul was also arrested by Moroccan authorities.

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North Korea Claims “Declaration of War” by Bill Crimi

Oct, 16, 2006__ Major news sources are reporting that the Pyongyang government of North Korea has issued a statement, indicating that it considers the approved United Nations sanctions against its country, to be a “declaration of War”.

     The statement follows a two day silence by that government after passage of the resolution by a UN council, due to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and the October 9^th underground nuclear test they conducted.

     Director John Negroponte’s office at the U.S. National Intelligence Service has confirmed that a nuclear weapon was detonated and that, it is estimated to have been in the one kiloton range. A one kiloton blast is equivalent to ¹/20^th of the explosive force detonated over Nagasaki during World War II.

     Pyongyang’s government appears to be preparing for a second nuclear test in the Northeast region of that country in defiance of an appeal for them to disengage from further testing of a nuclear device.

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  Obama Sweeps Iowa – by Trent Burrell

    Jaws dropped, and eyes rolled across the political sphere last night, with Barack Obama sweeping the Democratic Iowa Caucus to an overwhelming victory. Edwards squeezed out Clinton by a hair, pushing her to third. While on the republican side, Huckabee left his opponents in the dust as well.

   Both candidates surprised most of the political watchers with their huge voter’s support. It has been estimated that more than sixty percent of eligible voters turned out to vote. That figure indicates a 10% higher voter turnout than in 2004, and enormous when compared to the norm.

   Pollsters have reported that on the Democratic side, Barack received the biggest support by woman voters, and the young. Hillary had been expected to rake in the female vote, of which, she seemed to be counting upon for a win. Huckabee can thank the huge Christian, Evangelistic support for his landslide victory.

   It has been postulated that, both Obama and Huckabee’s surprising lead in Iowa, came from a cross-section of race, age and gender who are simply tired of the Washington insiders, who have consistently, failed the American people. There seems to be a loud cry for real change at the Capital, and last night…one would need to be hearing deficient, to have not heard it.

Writer Trent Burrell is a regular contributor to PoliceBlues.Com; he can be reached by email through the desk of Police Blues.