What I am Reading 8/4/2014 - Roll your own NSA edition

Sinister.ly - Tapping into VOIP calls using Wireshark -

Takes about 5 clicks for an unencrypted call.

The Verge - Israel eavesdropped on Secretary John Kerry during Middle East negotiations in 2013 - 

The German paper cites "reliable sources" who say that some of Secretary Kerry's negotiation efforts between Israel, Palestine, and Arab states were carried out using unencrypted telephone equipment. Apparently the calls were intercepted as they were transmitted by satellite. The Israeli government then used the information it obtained to try "to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East."

Speaking of unencrypted calls

Hacker News - Anonymous Group Takes Down Mossad's Website Over Gaza Conflict -

The hacktivist group Anonymous has reportedly taken down the official website of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad against Israel’s military incursion in Gaza, which has resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. The government of Israel has yet to comment on the Mossad hack attack.

 The ‘Hacktivists’ were able to take down Mossad’s website in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack early morning, claims a statement on one of the Anonymous hacker’s Twitter account. The attack on the website is supposed to be severe as it has been over 10 hours and the site is still down at the time of writing.

Saw something about this earlier on Gawker too.  It isn't just the Mossad's site the have been hitting everything apparently.

Quartz.com - What the top US engineering schools have in common with Hogwarts -

Going to Stanford is like being sorted into Gryffindor. “Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindor apart.”
Going to Caltech is like being sorted into Hufflepuff. “For Hufflepuff, hard workers were most worthy of admission.”
Going to MIT is like being sorted into Ravenclaw. “For Ravenclaw, the cleverest would always be the best.”
Going to Harvard is like being sorted into Slytherin. “Power-hungry Slytherin loved those of great ambition.”

Make of that what you will.

SFGate - House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack -

TheHouse Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee.

I can't find any actual confirmation of this report, although I do find stuff that confirms it has been declassified, so this is one of those take it for what it's worth things.  Personally I think the report is going to play out this way.  I have said since the beginning that people were making too much of it.  Yes it was horrible that the people there died, but I have never thought it was because the administration wanted them too.  Unfortunately at this point this has become the right's equivalent of 9/11 Truth.  No matter what people will believe until their dying day that Obama deliberately set up the Benghazi mission to die (or just as bad just decided to let them die while the President played golf.)

The Independent - US cities’ crackdown on homeless people is ‘close to ethnic cleansing’ -

“More cities are choosing to turn the necessary conduct of homeless people into criminal activity,” said Maria Foscarinis, director of the NLCHP. “Such laws threaten the human and constitutional rights of homeless people, impose unnecessary costs on cities, and do nothing to solve the problems they purport to address.”

There is absolutely no hyperbole in this headline whatsoever.  Giving a man a parking ticket for sitting with his feet in the street is the exact equivalent of 1,000,000 million Tutsi being killed in Rwanda or 6,000,000 Jews in the Nazi Concentration Camps.  What a ridiculous claim.