Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
NSA Uses Google Cookies to Pinpoint Targets for Hacking
December 11th, 2013Via: Washington Post: The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using “cookies” and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance. The agency’s internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that when companies follow consumers on the […]
FreeBSD Developers: Don’t Trust Intel/Via Random Number Generators
December 10th, 2013Via: Ars Technica: Developers of the FreeBSD operating system will no longer allow users to trust processors manufactured by Intel and Via Technologies as the sole source of random numbers needed to generate cryptographic keys that can’t easily be cracked by government spies and other adversaries. The change, which will be effective in the upcoming […]
What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data
December 10th, 2013Via: ACLU: We now know that the NSA is collecting location information en masse. As we’ve long said, location data is an extremely powerful set of information about people. To flesh out why that is true, here is the kind of future memo that we fear may someday soon be uncovered…
JPMorgan Patents Bitcoin-Like Payment System
December 10th, 2013Bitcoin is not anonymous on it’s own. Never was. Never will be. And if this JPMorgan thing is anonymous, my name is Santa Claus. Via: CNN: JPMorgan Chase has patented a digital payment system that could rival Bitcoin. The system includes digital wallets, the ability to transfer money to anyone and anonymity too, according to […]
Darpa’s Giant Folding Spy Satellite Will Dwarf All Other Space Telescopes
December 10th, 2013Via: Wired: Spying could become much easier if a new lightweight, folding satellite concept gets off the ground. Darpa, the military’s futuristic research agency, says it has plans to “break the glass ceiling” of space telescopes by shooting a new design into orbit that’s made of plastic and unfolds into a mammoth satellite that would […]
World of Spycraft: NSA and CIA Spied in Online Games
December 9th, 2013Via: ProPublica: Not limiting their activities to the earthly realm, American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents. Fearing that terrorist or criminal […]
By 2017 Nearly 45% of All New Servers Will Be Bought by Cloud Providers
December 9th, 2013Via: Computerworld: IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding, according to new data. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly […]
Police Collecting Cellphone Data
December 9th, 2013Via: USA Today: The National Security Agency isn’t the only government entity secretly collecting data from people’s cellphones. Local police are increasingly scooping it up, too. Armed with new technologies, including mobile devices that tap into cellphone data in real time, dozens of local and state police agencies are capturing information about thousands of cellphone […]
Stanford: Method of recording Brain Activity Could Lead to ‘Mind-Reading’ Devices
December 7th, 2013Intracranial implant required. Via: Stanford: A brain region activated when people are asked to perform mathematical calculations in an experimental setting is similarly activated when they use numbers — or even imprecise quantitative terms, such as “more than”— in everyday conversation, according to a study by Stanford University School of Medicine scientists. Using a novel […]
Northrop Grumman RQ-180
December 7th, 2013Via: Aviation Week: A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force […]
