Reuters/Hyungwon Kang
Chelsea Manning isn't the only source of online leaks to get a new lease on life. President Obama has pardoned General James Cartwright, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when it investigated leaks that revealed details of Stuxnet, the US-backed malware that sabotaged Iran's nuclear program. He had denied slipping out classified details to two New York Times reporters (including book author David Sanger) in a 2012 interview with the Bureau, only to be caught out later on. He had been facing up to 5 years in prison and was due to be sentenced the same day as the pardon.
At the moment, it's not certain why Cartwright is receiving the pardon. He was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from his nomination in 2007 through to his retirement from Marine Corps service in 2011, but he wasn't Obama's golden boy. Cartwright was denied the top Chairman spot in 2011 in part because of questions surrounding his staff management practices, including an alleged (though never punished) "unduly familiar relationship" with a female Captain.
One theory is that the outgoing White House administration wants to put a lid on discussion of Stuxnet. The Washington Post claimed that the investigation into Cartwright ran aground when officials realized they might have to confirm details of the malware in order to secure a conviction. That would have been particularly problematic at the time, when the US was negotiating the eventual Iranian nuclear shutdown agreement -- did it really want to admit to a cyberattack at such a critical moment? We wouldn't rule out any motivations at this point, but the guilty plea and pardon might spare the government from disclosing secrets.
CyanogenMod is dead, killed by parent company Cyanogen. The community is attempting to pick up the pieces and create a new project, LineageOS, based on the code. But it’s a reminder that open source software isn’t all sunshine, rainbows, and stability: in fact, it can often be very messy.
US authorities provided technical details to back up their claims that Russian authorities were behind recent cyber attacks on American political targets.
At any given point, a large selection of recent movies show up on torrent sites, many of which haven’t even been released yet. For anyone who downloaded, streamed, or torrented these yet-to-be-seen-in-theaters selections, you might have noticed one common theme among all of them: they were stuck at
This week we learned how to never run out of minutes again by making free VoIP calls on Android phones, automate Windows maintenance tasks to keep a PC running like new, crack a Windows password using a video guide, know why application installs want to make you reboot and close other apps, know
Even though Windows 7 support runs through 2020, Microsoft is touting the security benefits of Windows 10.
Chamberlain’s MyQ technology is great for opening and closing your garage door remotely with your smartphone, but you can also receive alerts whenever your garage door opens and closes (as well as receive alerts when it’s been open for an extended amount of time). Here’s how to enable them.
Facebook is on the hook for $2 billion in a lawsuit against ZeniMax Media over the creation of the Oculus Rift.
We've got the highest-rated handsets for Verizon Wireless.
If you need to scan, copy, and fax in addition to print, an all-in-one is the way to go. Here's how to find the right multifunction printer, plus our top recommendations for models for both home and office use.
The company continues to tweak its social network.
A concept using cheap built-in flame retardant might not affect battery performance, researchers say.
The security researcher cited in the report acknowledged that the word 'backdoor' was probably not the best choice.
Enterprise social listening platform Synthesio acquires a French startup that once tried to take down PowerPoint.
Do you regularly type the same long words, or even phrases? Complex emoticons, addresses, or even commonly misspelled words can be annoying to type, but macOS has a feature that can help.
Reuters/Hyungwon Kang