Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions and Key Clients
January 12th, 2015Via: TechCrunch: Palantir’s data analysis solution targets three industries: government, the finance sector and legal research. Each of these industries must wrestle with massive sets of data. To do this, Palantir’s toolsets are aimed at massive data caches, allowing litigators and the police to make connections otherwise invisible. For example, a firm hired by the […]
Judge Orders NYPD to Release Records on X-ray Vans
January 11th, 2015Via: ProPublica: The NYPD has a secretive program that uses unmarked vans with X-ray machines designed to detect bombs. ProPublica tried to find out more about it, but the NYPD refused to answer for three years.
China’s Elaborate and Absurd Internet Propaganda Machine
January 8th, 2015Seems like their learned their tricks from watching White House press conferences. Via: Quartz: “NOTICE: We request every internet commenter carry out the following task today,” begins an email from the supervisor. It’s just another day in the propaganda department of Zhanggong, a district in southeast China’s modestly sized city of Ganzhou. Employees and freelancers […]
FBI Says Search Warrants Not Needed to Use “Stingrays” in Public Places
January 6th, 2015Via: Ars Technica: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed “stingrays,” the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts. The FBI made its position known during […]
Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance
January 5th, 2015Via: New York Times: A survey of writers around the world by the PEN American Center has found that a significant majority said they were deeply concerned with government surveillance, with many reporting that they have avoided, or have considered avoiding, controversial topics in their work or in personal communications as a result. The findings […]
Who Is Watching You?
December 29th, 2014Via: Medium: We are living in a Dragnet Nation?—?a world of indiscriminate tracking where institutions are stockpiling data about individuals at an unprecedented pace. The rise of indiscriminate tracking is powered by the same forces that have brought us the technology we love so much?—?powerful computing on our desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Before computers […]
NSA Reports It May Have Broken Laws With Decade of Spying on U.S. Citizens
December 25th, 2014Oh sure, it’s just a few bad apples, combined with people making mistakes plus some coincidences. Nothing to see here. Maintain Christmas stupor. Situation normal. Via: Bloomberg: The National Security Agency today released reports on intelligence collection that may have violated the law or U.S. policy over more than a decade, including unauthorized surveillance of […]
Major Flaws in Mobile Communications Routing System
December 19th, 2014Bugs or features? Via: Washington Post: German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available. The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference […]
EFF in Court to Argue NSA Data Collection from Internet Backbone Is Unconstitutional
December 18th, 2014Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue on Friday before a federal court that the National Security Agency (NSA) is violating the Fourth Amendment by copying and searching data that it collects by tapping into the Internet backbone. The hearing on a motion for partial summary judgment in Jewel v. NSA […]
Verizon’s “End to End” Encryption Includes Backdoor for Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies
December 17th, 2014Via: Businessweek: Verizon is the latest big company to enter the post-Snowden market for secure communication, and it’s doing so with an encryption standard that comes with a way for law enforcement to access ostensibly secure phone conversations. Verizon Voice Cypher, the product introduced on Thursday with the encryption company Cellcrypt, offers business and government […]
