TRUTH be told, the NSA stories are starting to dry up. Almost 6 months after it all began there is finally some sense that we know almost everything that's worth knowing. So what are the latest revelations? Well, not much, but there are some news items enumerated below and we'll try to summarise them.
Telecoms firm has big hopes for secure-smartphone business after the news of US snooping on German leader's calls, but device isn't cheap
The NSA spying scandal has put a strain on the China business of Cisco and Qualcomm, the companies said recently
Cisco Systems, one of the largest networking equipment sellers in the world, has been losing major business in the wake of the NSA spying scandal. The company has publicly blamed the NSA for sowing distrust between American technology companies and the rest of the world – potentially costing them billions.
This possibly applies all mobile device makers and app writers. In fact it was not Apple but apps such as Dictionary.com, Pandora, the Weather Channel and Backflip - creator of the Paper Toss app, that collected and passed on to third party ad networks "Confidential data including users' geographic location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and political affiliations.”
Code.org—a tech non-profit backed by Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and other top brass—wants to improve computer science education for young women and minorities. And hey, that's great. But it wouldn't be a Zuck joint without something insidious: the group will hold private data about kids for years.
The initiative is trying to sign up entire school districts to test the curriculum: Code.org will provide schools with course materials, teacher stipends, and general support. What a deal!
In "The Word" segment of Colbert's show Rogers sets out an astounding defense of NSA surveillance.
Lord Macdonald says that ISC 'needs more power, cash and opposition chair'
The United States Congress is working on legislation to restrict the intelligence-gathering activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), a group of American lawmakers told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday (26 November).
After Edward Snowden revelations, EU executive underlines US compliance with European law and 'how things have gone badly'
The Wikipedia founder believes the recent revelations about spying by western governments will only give oppressive regimes more reason to censor the internet.
Someday, the unraveling of the National Security Agency's spying on virtually everyone might make a great spy movie. In the latest revelation, there are reports the secretive federal agency may have tapped Google and Yahoo through major Internet backbone providers.
We may think we’re used to the potential harms of sharing too much data on social networks, but what happens when passive data collection from sensors can be shared –sometimes without your knowledge?
Disabled woman denied entry to U.S. after agent cites supposedly private medical details
Reacting to the leaked documents detailing the proposed Data Protection Regulation, ORG Executive Director Jim Killock warned that 'pseudonymous' categories of data could create privacy problems for EU citizens.
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Editor tells parliamentary committee that stories revealing mass surveillance by UK and US have prompted global debate
Living in self-imposed exile in Russia, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden may be safely beyond the reach of Western powers. But dismayed by the continued airing of trans€atlantic intelligence, British authorities are taking full aim at a messenger shedding light on his secret files here — the small but mighty Guardian newspaper.
The pressures coming to bear on the Guardian, observers say, are testing the limits of press freedoms in one of the world’s most open societies. Although Britain is famously home to a fierce pack of news media outlets — including the tabloid hounds of old Fleet Street — it also has no enshrined constitutional right to free speech.
By targeting allies and enemies alike, the 'Five Eyes' club of English-speaking powers have eroded trust on the world stage
Germany's opposition party, the Social Democrats, is gauging whether or not the European Union should approve a free-trade deal with the US CNN recently reported, "Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership were already in a fragile state and will not be helped by claims that large French corporations such as telecom company Alcatel-Lucent have been targeted by the NSA."
● Australia's surveillance agency offered to share information collected about ordinary Australian citizens with its major intelligence partners, according to a secret 2008 document leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Even GCHQ and the NSA know their work may not be sustainable without a proper debate about their power
The Snowden revelations may not end internet surveillance, but they will certainly cause radical changes
Safeplug is a new network device from Cloud Engines, Inc., the company behind Pogoplug.
Using Tor, Safeplug allows you to browse the Internet anonymously from any device that you own. This is possible because it is designed to be connected to your router. And once activated, all connections that originate from any device behind your router are anonymized.
This is a long article about the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU), which is basically its own internal NSA.
But the C.F.A.A.’s broad guidelines for calculating “loss” mean that digital protests often result in much harsher penalties than their real-world analogues in the U.S. For example, most of the seven hundred Occupy Wall Street protesters who were arrested for blocking off the Brooklyn Bridge in October, 2011, received a night in jail plus a small fine. But for their D.D.O.S. disturbance, the Paypal Fourteen are each facing up to fifteen years in prison, with a plea deal possible only if thirteen members of the group comply.
UN's senior counter-terrorism official says revelations 'are at the very apex of public interest concerns'
The National Security Agency’s global spying activities have prompted 21 countries to pursue a resolution at the United Nations against the United States. Brazil and Germany presented this resolution to the General Assembly, appealing to the right to privacy enshrined in the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office has launched a criminal investigation into mass surveillance conducted by the US intelligence agencies.
According to the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, the National Security Agency (NSA) could have violated article 271 of the penal code, which lists “unlawful activities on behalf of a foreign state”.
Revelations about the extent of the surveillance programmes undertaken by the NSA and GCHQ – as well as their efforts to undermine online security and encryption – have provoked fierce reaction around the world, sparking technical innovations, legal challenges, and moves towards political reform.
If tampering isn’t your style, why not put the backdoor in plain sight? That’s the approach NSA took with the Dual_EC RNG, standardized by NIST in Special Publication 800-90. There’s compelling evidence that NSA deliberately engineered this generator with a backdoor — one that allows them to break any TLS/SSL connection made using it. Since the generator is (was) the default in RSA’s BSAFE library, you should expect every TLS connection made using that software to be potentially compromised.
And I haven’t even mentioned Intel’s plans to replace the Linux kernel RNG with its own hardware RNG.
We actually have a specific example that proves Snowden’s point. As the New York Times reported in 2009, an NSA analyst “improperly accessed” former President Bill Clinton’s personal email. More recently, we’ve learned that the NSA analysts abused the agency vast surveillance powers to spying on ex-spouses or former lovers.
Document released just before holiday season includes disputed claims about spy agency to share with 'family and close friends'
No person in recent memory has succeeded in creating so big a misunderstanding within the global policy elite as Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who has drawn attention to US's spying activities across the world.
Glenn Greenwald responded Sunday to accusations from news personalities that he has “monopolized” and “privatized” reporting (an accusation that seems to be newly cooked up for the purpose of discrediting journalists) on documents given to him by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
We use ratings for all kinds of services, so let's try scoring the way we use the internet to check on our security and privacy
That is the worst case scenario. Yes, the NSA is definitely slurping up scads of information about your phone calls. It probably isn't storing your Facebook chats, emails, and Skype calls. Our goal with this guide is to detail exactly what you need to do to assure that it can't, even if it wants to. As you will see, it is a cumbersome process.
It is currently unclear if the Farsnews report is accurate, though director of security strategy at FireEye Jason Steer said it is certainly plausible.
"Given that this has already happened with Stuxnet, it is certainly more than plausible to believe that Stuxnet 2.0 is also possible. One would be naive to assume it wouldn't happen again. With the change in relationship between Iran and the US, it is highly likely that Israel and Saudi Arabia united to try and negate the threat of nuclear bombs on their front door,” he said.
The original Stuxnet worm hijacked control of Siemens industrial control systems, then forced them to alter key processes to damage machinery. The malware has since managed to spread outside of Iran and has affected several other power plants, some close to Europe.
Steer told V3 that, given how successful the original Stuxnet was at spreading, the fallout of a more advanced variant could be devastating for power plants, but will be of little concern to most regular businesses.