Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
DROPOUTJEEP: How NSA Owns iPhones
December 30th, 2013It looks like they implemented Back Orifice for iOS. Anyway, *yawn*. So now we know the name of the tool. The first reference that I can find on Cryptogon for a U.S. government agency having this capability is: FBI Uses Mobile Phones for Audio Surveillance – Even When Phones Are Off. That’s from 2006. Via: […]
NSA: Office of Tailored Access Operations
December 29th, 2013I always thought that this was called Special Collection Service. Maybe this TAO thing is Double Plus Special. Via: Spiegel: The NSA’s TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency’s top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors […]
Identifying People Reflected in the Pupils of Portrait Subjects
December 27th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times: Can the eyes of photographed crime victims help authorities spot their victimizers? According to new research published Thursday in the journal PLOS One, high-resolution photographs can be “mined” for hidden information. Specifically, the authors said that photographs of faces can reveal enough visual information on bystanders to identify them. In a […]
U.S. Tests Surveillance Balloons on Mexico Border
December 21st, 2013Via: AP: The U.S. Border Patrol will evaluate the use of three helium-filled surveillance balloons along the Texas-Mexico border that were originally used by the Department of Defense in Iraq and Afghanistan. Standing beneath a 52-foot-long tethered balloon on Thursday in Penitas, the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector Chief Rosendo Hinojosa said the blimp-shaped […]
GnuPG: 16 Years of Protecting Privacy
December 21st, 2013I don’t trust anything completely when it comes to computer security, but I trust GnuPG more than anything else. Via: GnuPG: Today marks 16 years since the first release of GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). In that time the project has grown from being a hacker’s hobby into one of the world’s most critical anti-surveillance tools. […]
NSA Had Secret Contract with RSA
December 21st, 2013Via: Reuters: As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor […]
4096-Bit RSA Broken Using Data Contained in Audio Emissions from Computers
December 19th, 2013Via: ExtremeTech: Security researchers have successfully broken one of the most secure encryption algorithms, 4096-bit RSA, by listening – yes, with a microphone — to a computer as it decrypts some encrypted data. The attack is fairly simple and can be carried out with rudimentary hardware. The repercussions for the average computer user are minimal, […]
Saab Wins Brazil Jet Deal After NSA Spying Sours Boeing Bid
December 18th, 2013Via: Reuters: Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract to Saab AB on Wednesday to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets, a surprise coup for the Swedish company after news of U.S. spying on Brazilians helped derail Boeing’s chances for the deal. The contract, negotiated over the course of three presidencies, will supply Brazil’s air […]
Who Owns the World’s Biggest Bitcoin Wallet? The FBI
December 18th, 2013Via: Wired: Who owns the single largest Bitcoin wallet on the internet? The U.S. government. In September, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online drug marketplace, and it started seizing bitcoins belonging to the Dread Pirate Roberts — the operator of the illicit online marketplace, who they say is an American man named Ross […]
No Matter How Hard You Try to Hide, This Professional Skip Tracer Will Find You
December 18th, 2013Via: Wired: At 4’11” and just over 100 pounds, Michelle Gomez does not look like the sort of person you’d hire to retrieve earthmoving equipment stolen by a peruvian crime family. But in the summer of 2013, that’s exactly what she was doing. Gomez, the proprietor of a one-woman operation in Lockhart, Texas, called Unlimited […]
