Michael McKenna: Be Grateful For George Washington: America’s ‘Indispensable Man’

 Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, where my On Crime column appears, wrote a good column celebrating the birthday of George Washington. 

On Monday, we celebrate George Washington’s birthday, as we have for almost 200 years.

 

Contrary to popular belief and the efforts of salesmen throughout the land, no Congress nor president has ever changed this celebration to the abomination that is “Presidents Day.” That’s good, because the assortment of mostly mediocre American presidents deserves no celebration.

 

George Washington, born in Virginia on Feb. 22, 1732, is quite another matter.

 

He dropped out of school at the age of 15 to tend to the family farm, do a bit of surveying, and dabble in real estate. He wrote no books. He wasn’t a particularly gifted orator. He wasn’t the richest man of his time or place.

 

He was, however, a natural and fearless military officer, having been entrusted with commands by the British army during the French and Indian War when he was just 22 years old. He defeated that same British army, widely considered the best in the world, 25 years later in the Revolutionary War.

 

More importantly, he was a natural leader. He guided the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and enhanced its deliberations by his calming presence. Those deliberations were, of course, made easier by the certain knowledge among the delegates that Washington would be the first president of the new republic.

He voluntarily stepped down as president after two terms, setting a precedent that no one even thought to challenge until the republic ran across the unfortunately authoritarian and grasping Roosevelts.

 

He has set the standard for presidents, generals and American leaders in all fields. To date, no one has entirely matched it.

 

… In 1965, the historian and writer James Flexner called him the “indispensable man.” The British military called him “the Fox” because of his consistent ability to elude their superior forces during the Revolutionary War.

 

We simply call him the “father of our country” because that is what he was. He made life better for every American who has ever lived, and because America has been a force for good in the world, he, in turn, made life better for just about everyone on the planet.

 

… So, if you get a moment this Washington’s Birthday, make sure to think about the first, and greatest, president with whom the United States was blessed, and be grateful. 

You can read the rest of the column via the below link: 

Be grateful for George Washington: America's 'indispensable man' - Washington Times 

On This Day In History Mark Twain Published The Great American Novel, 'The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn'

As History.com notes, on February 18, 1885, Mark Twain published his famous - and famously controversial - novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the U.S.

Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Though Twain saw Huck’s story as a kind of sequel to his earlier book, the new novel was far more serious, focusing on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the antebellum South.

At the book’s heart is the journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway enslaved person, down the Mississippi River on a raft. Jim runs away because he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and children, and Huck goes with him to help him get to Ohio and freedom. 

Huck narrates the story in his distinctive voice, offering colorful descriptions of the people and places they encounter along the way. The most striking part of the book is its satirical look at racism, religion and other social attitudes of the time. 

While Jim is strong, brave, generous and wise, many of the white characters are portrayed as violent, stupid or simply selfish, and the naive Huck ends up questioning the hypocritical, unjust nature of society in general.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Mark Twain publishes “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” | February 18, 1885 | HISTORY

A Little Humor: Only In South Philly!

Only in South Philly will someone use a dog on a rocking chair to save a parking spot on the street in the snow.

Gotta love South Philly!

Police Offer Tips On How To Avoid Being Carjacked

 Broad and Liberty posted my piece on police tips on avoiding being carjacked.

You can read my piece via the below link or the below text:

Paul Davis: Police offer tips on how to avoid being carjacked (broadandliberty.com)

An ambitious crew of armed carjackers took three different cars in three different locations from three different victims in less than an hour in Philadelphia early in the morning on January 27th. 

Over the many years of my covering the cops, I’ve witnessed some quick and bold crimes while out on ride-alongs with Philadelphia police officers, but this must be a dubious record of some kind. 

Thankfully, no one was injured, although no doubt the victims were traumatized by having their cars stolen by desperate gun-wielding criminals.  

The carjacking crew remains at large, and they are considered armed and dangerous. 

“We know these are definitely the same people,” Philadelphia Police Captain John Ryan told reporters. “It’s the same getaway car. It’s like a blue Honda CRV that we believe was stolen.”

I interviewed Captain John Ryan, the commanding officer of the Major Crimes Division, a few years ago. He noted that carjacking was a city-wide issue.

“Carjacking is a shocking crime, and the elderly victims often suffer heart attacks and other injuries that are a result of being mishandled during the crime.”

Captain Ryan suggests that to avoid becoming a carjacking victim, one should always be aware of your surroundings. 

“Know where you are, who is near you, and who is approaching you,” Captain Ryan said. 

Police officers say carjackings can be avoided by taking a series of crime prevention steps.

Below are some tips the police offer:

To avoid becoming a carjacking victim, one should be alert and not distracted or deep in thought. 

Listen to your instincts If you feel uncomfortable or notice an unwelcome stranger approaching your vehicle, leave the area. 

Always enter your vehicle swiftly and without hesitation. 

Park your car in well-lit areas. 

Don’t park near walls, bushes, or dumpsters. 

Drive with your windows locked. 

Avoid taking streets with frequent stops and intersections.

Keep some space between your car and the car ahead of you when stopped for a red light or stop sign, so you can maneuver around it if need be. 

Think twice before helping a stranded motorist. Carjackers sometimes use a ruse to trap victims.

Know your vehicle identification (VIN) number, which will assist the police in recovering your car. 

If another vehicle bumps into your car or truck, find a safe, well-lit place with other people around to stop. Don’t immediately get out of your vehicle.

Keep your doors locked and windows shut.

Hide your valuables in the car. 

Use of anti-theft devices like a steering wheel lock or a gearshift column lock.

Always have your cell phone handy and charged.

Avoid being alone in your car in high-crime neighborhoods and isolated roads. 

Don’t sit in your car with the door unlocked or the windows rolled down. 

Don’t park and use isolated ATMs.

One police tip that I would not recommend is tossing your car keys far away when confronted by armed carjackers. In my experience, armed robbers are short on patience and quick to anger, so throwing your car keys into a bush might very well get you shot.

I have a license to carry a firearm and I am usually armed. I’m military trained and experienced, but I would never recommend that a potential carjacking victim initiate a shootout with armed carjackers. 

There have been cases where an armed potential victim shot the would-be carjackers and thwarted the robbery. But conversely, there have also been cases where the car owner was shot and killed.

Carjackers usually have their guns out and ready to fire, so they have the drop on the car owner, whose firearm is probably still in its holster under a jacket and shirt.  

Refusing to be a victim and offering armed resistance to a couple of armed carjackers is a personal risk that one should consider carefully – and quickly. If alone, one might surely be tempted to defend oneself and property, but if one were with their family, the risk of them being harmed might make one rethink their immediate reaction. Insurance, after all, will cover the loss of the car. 

A friend of mine was carjacked while waiting to pick up his daughter from work late one evening. He was armed and briefly considered going all “Dodge City,” as he put it, with the two carjackers. But he thought of his daughter, who might have come outside just as the bullets were flying, so he handed over his car keys to the carjackers. 

“You can always buy more stuff,” Captain Ryan told me. “You can’t buy more you.”  

Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.

Justice Department Conducts Court-Authorized Disruption Of Botnet Controlled By The Russian Federation’s Main Intelligence Directorate Of The General Staff (GRU)

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:

A January 2024 court-authorized operation has neutralized a network of hundreds of small office/home office (SOHO) routers that GRU Military Unit 26165, also known as APT 28, Sofacy Group, Forest Blizzard, Pawn Storm, Fancy Bear, and Sednit, used to conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes. 

These crimes included vast spearphishing and similar credential harvesting campaigns against targets of intelligence interest to the Russian government, such as U.S. and foreign governments and military, security, and corporate organizations. In recent months, allegations of Unit 26165 activity of this type has been the subject of a private sector cybersecurity advisory and a Ukrainian government warning

This botnet was distinct from prior GRU and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) malware networks disrupted by the Department in that the GRU did not create it from scratch. Instead, the GRU relied on the “Moobot” malware, which is associated with a known criminal group. Non-GRU cybercriminals installed the Moobot malware on Ubiquiti Edge OS routers that still used publicly known default administrator passwords. GRU hackers then used the Moobot malware to install their own bespoke scripts and files that repurposed the botnet, turning it into a global cyber espionage platform.

The Department’s court-authorized operation leveraged the Moobot malware to copy and delete stolen and malicious data and files from compromised routers. Additionally, in order to neutralize the GRU’s access to the routers until victims can mitigate the compromise and reassert full control, the operation reversibly modified the routers’ firewall rules to block remote management access to the devices, and during the course of the operation, enabled temporary collection of non-content routing information that would expose GRU attempts to thwart the operation.

“The Justice Department is accelerating our efforts to disrupt the Russian government’s cyber campaigns against the United States and our allies, including Ukraine,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “In this case, Russian intelligence services turned to criminal groups to help them target home and office routers, but the Justice Department disabled their scheme. We will continue to disrupt and dismantle the Russian government’s malicious cyber tools that endanger the security of the United States and our allies.”

“For the second time in two months, we’ve disrupted state-sponsored hackers from launching cyber-attacks behind the cover of compromised U.S. routers,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “We will continue to leverage all of our legal authorities to prevent harm and protect the public — whether the hackers are from Russia, China, or another global threat.” 

“Russia’s GRU continues to maliciously target the United States through their botnet campaigns,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The FBI utilized its technical capabilities to disrupt Russia’s access to hundreds of routers belonging to individuals in addition to small and home offices. This type of criminal behavior is simply unacceptable, and the FBI, in coordination with our federal and international partners, will not allow for any of Russia’s services to negatively impact the American people and our allies.”  

“In this unique, two-for-one operation, the National Security Division and its partners disrupted a botnet used by both criminal and state-sponsored actors,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Notably, this represents the third time since Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine that the Department has stripped the Russian intelligence services of a key tool used to further the Kremlin’s acts of aggression and other malicious activities. We will continue to use our legal authorities and cutting-edge techniques, and to draw on the strength of our partnerships, to protect the public and our allies from such threats.”

“This is yet another case of Russian military intelligence weaponizing common devices and technologies for that government’s malicious aims,” said U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “As long as our nation-state adversaries continue to threaten U.S. national security in this way, we and our partners will use every tool available to disrupt their cyber thugs — whomever and wherever they are.”

“Operation Dying Ember was an international effort led by FBI Boston to remediate over a thousand compromised routers belonging to unsuspecting victims here in the United States, and around the world that were targeted by malicious, nation state actors in Russia to facilitate their strategic intelligence collection,” said Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen of the FBI Boston Field Office. “The FBI’s strong partnerships with the private sector were critical to identifying and addressing this threat which targeted our national security interests here and abroad. This operation should make it crystal clear to our adversaries that we will not allow anyone to exploit our technology and networks.”

As described in court documents, the government extensively tested the operation on the relevant Ubiquiti Edge OS routers. Other than stymieing the GRU’s ability to access to the routers, the operation did not impact the routers’ normal functionality or collect legitimate user content information. Additionally, the court-authorized steps to disconnect the routers from the Moobot network are temporary in nature; users can roll back the firewall rule changes by undertaking factory resets of their routers or by accessing their routers through their local network (e.g., via the routers’ web-based user interface). However, a factory reset that is not also accompanied by a change of the default administrator password will return the router to its default administrator credentials, leaving the router open to reinfection or similar compromises.

The FBI Philadelphia and Boston Field Offices and Cyber Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the National Security Division’s National Security Cyber Section led the disruption effort. The Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Office of International Affairs, Shadowserver Foundation, Microsoft Threat Intelligence, and other partners provided valuable assistance.

The FBI is working with internet service providers to provide notice of the operation to owners and operators of SOHO routers covered by the court’s authorization. If you believe you have a compromised router, please visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

To better protect themselves, the FBI advises all victims to conduct the following remediation steps:

1.     Perform a hardware factory reset to flush the file systems of malicious files;

2.     Upgrade to the latest firmware version;

3.     Change any default usernames and passwords; and

4.     Implement strategic firewall rules to prevent the unwanted exposure of remote management services.

The FBI strongly encourages router owners to avoid exposing their devices to the internet until they change the default passwords.

A Little Humor: Celebrating Valentine's Day

 

A Look Back At The Inside Government Radio Program

One of the things I loved about being a producer and on-air host of "Inside Government" from 1991 to 2005 was recording in a booth right next to the Philadelphia radio giants I grew up listening to, such as Wee Willy Webber and Joe Niagra.

The half-hour interview radio program, sponsored by the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board, aired on WPEN 950 AM and WMGK 102.5 FM.

I mostly interviewed military and law enforcement people about crime, espionage and terrorism. But my favorite guest was my then-preteen daughter.

I had her on the air to discuss "Take Your Daughter To Work Day."

She was a natural on radio. Smart, funny and totally at ease.