Hackers crammed into a crowded conference room for the rare opportunity to examine and attempt to hack some 30 pieces of election equipment LAS VEGAS (Reuters) JULY 28, 2017  - Hackers attending this weekend's Def Con hacking convention in Las Vegas were invited to break into voting machines and voter databases in a bid to uncover vulnerabilities that could be exploited to sway election results. The 25-year-old conference's first 'hacker voting village' opened on Friday as part of an effort to raise awareness about the threat of election results being altered through hacking. Hackers crammed into a crowded conference room for the rare opportunity to examine and attempt to hack some 30 pieces of election equipment, much of it purchased over eBay, including some voting machines and digital voter registries that are currently in use. 'We encourage you to do stuff that if you did on election day they would probably arrest you,' said Johns Hopkins com...

Iranian ex-president Ahmadinejad facing sentencing over misuse of funds Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad Beirut, Reuters ,  Jul 31, 2017  - Iran's former president,  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  , faces sentences on seven verdicts of misusing billions of dollars in government funds while in office, the public prosecutor at Iran’s Supreme Audit Court said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday. In one case, dating back to Ahmadinejad’s second term in office between 2009 and 2013, the misused funds amounted to more than two billion dollars, the prosecutor, Fayaz Shojaie, said in his interview with the newspaper Etemaad. The verdicts have been announced to the parliament, Shojaie said. The Supreme Audit Court operates under the supervision of the Iranian parliament. It is not clear whether Ahmadinejad was formally tried by the court and is facing sentencing, or whether the Iranian parliament must now follow up on the court's verdicts. Shojaie said that he did not be...

Two police motorbikes burn during a protest against the elections for a Constituent Assembly in Caracas on July 30, 2017 CARACAS, AFP , 30 July 2017  - Venezuelan soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters blocking a highway in Caracas on Sunday, in one of several violent scenes surrounding a contentious vote for a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. After an initial skirmish in the upmarket district of Santa Fe, the National Guard troops withdrew and protesters -- some wearing masks and carrying Molotov cocktails -- returned to block the road. 'We are here as pure resistance, against the process happening today against the constitution. The people are not going to give up the streets until this awful government goes,' one 54-year-old militant, Carlos Zambrano, told AFP. 'We will remain fighting until (President Nicolas) Maduro leaves,' he vowed. In the western neighborhoods of El Paraiso and Montalban, residents said soldier...

Iranian Opposition Welcomes New US Sanctions Against IRGC New sanctions on Iran are a step towards taking power away from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but there is much more the US and its allies can do. The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to rally  major new sanctions  on Iran, parallel to measures on North Korea and Russia. To impose additional sanctions on Iran’s defense sector, The House voted 419-3, moving the bill forward to be signed by President Trump. Coming after three weeks of negotiations, this bill “tightens the screws on our most dangerous adversaries,” explained House Speaker Paul Ryan. The bill sanctions anyone associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or anyone whom the US determines is complicit in Iranian human rights violations. Anyone sanctioned under the act may later have sanctions removed after a five-year review. Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi welcome the US House of ...

Two Years after Nuclear Deal, Iran Seeking Regional Dominance New York – July marks the second anniversary of the controversial nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).A deal which not only did not stop Iran’s nuclear program, but it only delayed it and at the same time provided billions of dollars to the regime to pursue its destructive policies in the region. The Obama Administration and other advocates of the appeasement policy claimed that this agreement would bring serious changes to Iran’s behavior, including its actions in the Middle East. Two years on, it is increasingly evident that these claims, hollow and baseless on some levels, have fallen short. The deal and the misguided policy that it influenced have emboldened Iran in many areas, especially its malign regional activities. The agreement not only failed to improve the Iranian people’s economic status, but it actually granted the Revolutionary Guards...

IRAN'S FEAR OF REGIME CHANGE BY IRANIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR RESISTANCE (PMOI/MEK) Lethal international, economic and social crises that has plunged the Iranian regime into the dilemma it is currently facing on one hand, and the expanding support for the Iranian opposition  MEK  that can realize  regime change in Iran  on the other, have all injected utter fear amongst Tehran’s mullahs. US policymakers are coming closer to the necessary solution of regime change to confront Tehran as the leading sponsor of terrorism and human rights violator, as a regime that oppresses its own people and threatens neighboring nations. However, this regime change is different from previous examples through military action and foreign war. In Iran, considering the existence of an organized opposition with deep social roots and a social base inside Iran, symbolized in the  MEK , is able to realize this objective of toppling the mullahs’ regime. Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran’...

The U.S. Senate voted almost unanimously on Thursday to pass new sanctions on Russia, North Korea and Iran. The officials of Iranian regime are already afraid of the consequences of the new sanctions. In addition to economic implications of the sanctions, what worries them the most is the actions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ( IRGC ) as a terrorist organization. Designating and imposing sanctions on the IRGC was long overdue because the IRGC serves as the guarantee to preserve the entirety of the regime ruling Iran and is the main entity responsible for domestic suppression, the export of terrorism and extremism, and obtaining weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The new bill has added to already shaky regime’s fears. Janati, the head of the Guardian Council announced on Thursday that the main issue which has preoccupied the Supreme leader is his concern over regime change. Regime change was the main topic of the July 1, ...