"Jester" attacks Wikileaks.

(CNN) -- A computer hacker who calls himself "The Jester" claimed responsibility for the cyber attack which took down the WikiLeaks site Sunday, shortly before it started posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

The Jester, who describes himself as a "hacktivist for good," said he took the controversial site down "for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."
He normally attacks Islamist websites, announcing "TANGO DOWN" on his Twitter account when claiming to have attacked a site. "Tango Down" is Special Forces jargon for having eliminated a terrorist.

Over the past few days, the Jester has targeted a handful of websites for reasons including "online incitement to cause young Muslims to carry out acts of violent jihad," "distributing jihadist instructional materials," and "for the online radicalization of young Muslims in US and Europe."
WikiLeaks holds back -- some New leaks in 'public's interest' What is WikiLeaks? WikiLeaks: Public has 'right to know'

The Jester describes himself as "an ex-soldier with a rather famous unit, country purposely not specified."

"I was involved with supporting Special Forces, I have served in (and around) Afghanistan amongst other places," he told the website threatchaos.com early this year.
WikiLeaks said in September that it had prepared an unspecified "insurance policy" against its site being taken down.

"This annoyed me... so I got busy," the Jester wrote on his blog in September.
Cyber security expert Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure believes the Jester was really behind the hack, he told CNN.

WikiLeaks was down for several hours Sunday, spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said Monday.
He said he did not know who was behind it, and he seemed surprised when CNN told him an anti-Islamist hacker was taking credit.

WikiLeaks excites "a lot of strong emotions," Hrafnsson said.

The hacker did not immediately respond to CNN requests for comment. WikiLeaks posted that it was under attack at about 11 a.m. ET Sunday, not long before its latest and largest leak.

The site seemed to be running normally as of early Monday morning.

US and South Korea begin military exercises

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea and the United States started joint military exercises Sunday, U.S. Forces Korea spokesman David Oten told CNN, prompting a furious response from North Korea.

The naval operations are "no more than an attempt to find a pretext for aggression and ignite a war at any cost," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said, warning that the drills "are putting the Korean Peninsula at a state of ultra-emergency."

North Korea warned of unpredictable "consequences" if the United States sends an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea for the military maneuvers.
The divided peninsula, tense at the best of times, has been near the boiling point since Tuesday, when North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.

China called Sunday for an emergency meeting of the six major powers involved in talks about the Korean peninsula.
Top diplomats from the six nations need to meet soon to "maintain peace and stability on the peninsula and ease the tension" in the region, Beijing's special representative for the region, Wu Dawei, said Sunday.

South Korea said Sunday it did not think the time was right for a resumption of the Six-Party talks, then added that its comment was not a response to China's call for an emergency meeting, which Seoul said it would "bear in mind.


READ THE FULL STORY AT CNN HERE

Portland Christmas Tree Bomber Foiled

(CNN) -- A 19-year-old has been arrested in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, on Friday evening, the Justice Department announced.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He is a resident of Corvallis, Oregon, and a student at Oregon State University, according to the FBI.

Mohamud was arrested by the FBI and Portland Police Bureau after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van that was parked near the tree-lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Justice
Department said in a written statement, but the device was actually inert.

"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale," said Arthur Balizan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. "At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack."
The arrest was the culmination of a long-term undercover operation during which Mohamud had been monitored closely as his alleged bomb plot developed, the Justice Department said. Officials said the public was never in danger from the device.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit written by an FBI special agent, Mohamud was in e-mail communication in August 2009 with a person believed to be involved in terrorist activities. In December, that person was "located in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan," the affidavit states.

The two communicated regularly, the affidavit states, and "using coded language, they discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to prepare for violent jihad."
Mohamud attempted to contact another associate who he thought would help facilitate his travel overseas, the affidavit states, but "because Mohamud used the wrong e-mail address in his efforts to contact [the second associate], he never successfully contacted him to arrange travel."

An undercover FBI employee contacted Mohamud in June under the guise of being affiliated with the associate who was in Pakistan, according to the affidavit. Mohamud met with the undercover operative on July 30 in Portland.
Mohamud allegedly told the undercover operative that he had written articles that were published in Jihad Recollections, an online magazine that advocated violent jihad.

"Mohamud also indicated that he wanted to become 'operational,'" the Justice Department said. "Asked what he meant by 'operational,' Mohamud stated that he wanted to put an 'explosion' together, but needed help."

At a meeting in August, the Justice Department said, Mohamud allegedly told undercover FBI operatives he had been thinking of committing violent jihad since the age of 15. According to the affidavit, Mohamud then told undercover operatives that he had identified a potential target for a bomb: the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Breaking: North Korea fires more shots...

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea (AP) - A defiant flash of North Korean artillery within sight of the island that it attacked this week sent a warning signal to Seoul and Washington: The North is not backing down.

The apparent military drill Friday came as the top U.S. commander in South Korea toured Yeonpyeong island to survey the wreckage from the rain of artillery three days earlier. As a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier headed toward the Yellow Sea for exercises next week with South Korea, the North warned that the joint maneuvers will push the Korean peninsula to the "brink of war."

South Korea's government, meanwhile, struggled to recoup from the surprise attacks that killed four people, including two civilians, and forced its beleaguered defense minister to resign Thursday. President Lee Myung-bak on Friday named a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the post.

Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed large parts of Yeonpyeong in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the disputed sea border.

READ THE FILL STORY HERE

Cyber Monday Intercept

For a very limited time you can "intercept" an advanced copy of "The Interceptors Club & The Secret of the Black Manta" by Steve Douglass for only 99 centsI

My first e-book is available for download as an e-book-html and in many other formats (including adobe pdf for easy reading on your desktop, laptop PC or ebook reader.

Think "Sneakers" meets "The Hardy Boys", Static and his rag-tag gang of teen techies are tricked into hacking into and stealing the prototype of an unmanned stealth warplane.


Somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico, at a secret air base, they have built the ultimate unmanned stealth warplane.

It embodies artificial intelligence.

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It can fly rings around any fighter jet.

It can fly above Mach 6.

It is armed with exotic pulse-weaponry...

... and it is in the hands of a spy who wants to sell it to North Korea.

It is the Interceptors Club mission to get "The Black Manta" back.

That's the premise behind my novel, The Interceptors Club and the Secret of The Black Manta, a work of fiction, loosely based on my many years of actual experience "stealth chasing" for publications such as Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine, Popular Science and Aircraft Illustrated.

From young readers and adults, no matter your age, you will like The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta.

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Happy Holidays.

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