Links 6/12/2013: NSA News

ChaCha20 and Poly1305 in OpenSSH

Recently, I committed support for a new authenticated encryption cipher for OpenSSH, chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com.

Should Americans be worried about NSA surveillance? [VIDEO]

The 5€½ minute video was made by Brian Knappenberger. Knappenberger is no stranger to tackling controversial internet subjects related to security and privacy, having previously made the documentary “We are Legion”, about Anonymous.

He is currently making another documentary about internet activist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself in January 2013 after he was charged with using MIT’s network to grab millions of articles from the non-for-profit academic journal archive JSTOR, with the aim of republishing them without restriction.

Confused about how the NSA gathers info? Check out this nifty animation

The video, which is part of the newspaper’s Made Simple series, uses fairly simple animation and a jazzy soundtrack to make a fairly complex topic accessible. By avoiding jargon, the video also does a pretty good job of explaining what implications this kind of surveillance has for every day web users.

NSA FOIA Response Claims Data On Vendor Contracts 'Unsearchable'

MuckRock has been filing dozens of FOIA requests in hopes of freeing up info on the many contractors employed by the NSA. Unsurprisingly, this has met with little success. While it did manage to secure 16 pages on French security firm Vupen, its other requests have been met with claims that no responsive documents have been found. This is hard to believe considering some of the requests are about known NSA contractors.

A Move Towards Generalised Internet Surveillance in France?

Yesterday the 2014-2019 defense bill passed first reading in the French National Assembly. It marks a strong shift towards total online surveillance. If passed, the bill will not only allow live monitoring of everyone's personal and private data but also do so without judicial oversight, as the surveillance will be enabled through administrative request. The bill also turns permanent measures that were only temporary.

NSA-proof Euro cloud gang: Cool idea, bro... until it turns into MARKET-EATING beast

Some German politicians and lobbyists have been pushing for some of Europe's technology companies to group together and create separate IT infrastructure from US-based or US-controlled systems. These calls have come in light of concerns about US intelligence agencies' surveillance of data held by US technology companies.

Snowden files reveal Swedish-American surveillance of Russia

Uppdrag granskning (Mission Investigation) and SVT is the first Swedish news outlet to get access to documents concerning Sweden leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, who left the American organization for surveillance, NSA (National Security Agency) in May this year.

12 Corporate Espionage Tactics Used Against Leading Progressive Groups, Activists and Whistleblowers

Corporate spies for Dow, Kraft and others have tried to discredit, shame and infiltrate civic groups using an array of dirty tricks.

After Snowden, we're self-censoring and we don't care

When Edward Snowden unleashed the flood of classified documents and surveillance data secreted from U.S. spy agencies earlier this year, it is unclear if he anticipated the high-level damage it would do to U.S. international relations.

Headlines have focused on irate calls by heads of state to President Barack Obama and parliamentary moves to restore privacy. Diplomats have been summoned to repair fractured relationships.

Spooks ban Obama from using iPhones

US President Barack Obama, a well-known BlackBerry fan, has said that he’s not allowed to have an iPhone for “security reasons”.

In a speech at the White House promoting his healthcare changes to a youth audience, Obama said that he couldn’t use an iPhone, though he joked that his daughters seemed to spend a lot of time on theirs.

NSA Opponents Want To Cut Off Utah Facility From Water Supply

While the facility will feature state of the art technology and security measures, at the end of the day, like any other building, the data center will rely on local utilities, and local opponents want to cut it off from the grid. Advocacy groups, which have formed the OffNow coalition, are pushing for state legislation that would cut off utilities to the NSA’s new data center being built in Bluffdale, Utah. The argues that the NSA’s electronic snooping violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unwarranted searches and seizures, and proposed state legislation known as the 4th Amendment Protection Act would prevent the local government from supporting the building with local utilities.

NSA Sent Home Talking Points for Employees to Use in Conversations with Family & Friends During Holidays

HOW TO TELL WHEN THE N.S.A. IS LYING

If the National Security Agency says that it is not “intentionally” doing something—say, collecting records of the locations of Americans’ cell phones—then it is almost certainly taking that very action.

If it says it is doing so “incidentally,” it’s probably doing so on a large scale. If it adds that said effort does not “target” Americans or isn’t “directed” at them, that means it doesn’t believe those Americans—or Congress, or the courts—should mind, because the N.S.A. analyst who entered a search term or tapped into a mobile-network cable had first closed his eyes and thought about terrorists.
Obama says he will propose NSA reforms
Obama to Propose Curbs on NSA Spying to Safeguard Privacy

Like, What the Hell NSA — How Much Worse Can It Get?
NSA Website Down Again: DDoOS Attack Or 'Internal Error' At Fault?

The website of the National Security Agency (NSA) went down on Thursday in what is at least the second instance of such an outage since former government contractor Edward Snowden began releasing classified documents about the agency's surveillance activities earlier this year.

The NSA scandal has damaged U.S. credibility online

NSA surveillance allegations have led to countries questioning the country's commitment to Internet freedom, a former Obama official says
Edward Snowden, Democracy and NSA Spying

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