Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
The One About Jimmy Carter Supporting Edward Snowden
July 19th, 2013Well, this is interesting, since the USS Jimmy Carter is effectively a purpose built NSA submarine that taps undersea fiber optic cables all over the world. Via: Huffington Post: Former President Jimmy Carter announced support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden this week, saying that his uncovering of the agency’s massive surveillance programs had proven “beneficial.” […]
And Now, ‘Smart Plates’: California May Issue Digital License Plates
July 19th, 2013Via: CBS: California may become the first state to issue digital license plates that can be registered electronically and record tolls. Privacy advocates are concerned the plates could become tracking devices for law enforcement. Instead of a metal license plate, the digital plate would be a computer screen, slightly larger than an iPad. Registering the […]
Shocker: The NSA Admits It Analyzes More People’s Data Than Previously Revealed
July 18th, 2013Via: The Atlantic Wire: As an aside during testimony on Capitol Hill today, a National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated. Chris Inglis, the agency’s deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the […]
Driving Somewhere? There’s a Government Record of That
July 17th, 2013Via: AP: Chances are, your local or state police departments have photographs of your car in their files, noting where you were driving on a particular day, even if you never did anything wrong. Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of […]
Judge Demands Tech Companies Hand Activist Data Over to Chevron
July 17th, 2013Via: Grist: Chevron is attempting to defend itself against a pesky $18 billion-plus judgment for its dirty dealing in the Ecuador rainforest. In the company’s appeal against the landmark judgment, a federal judge in New York has upheld a subpoena from Chevron seeking IP addresses and identity records of people allegedly tied to the investigation. […]
Microsoft Trying to Create System That Predicts Your Physical Location in the Future
July 17th, 2013Via: Fast Company: Would you like to know how crowded your drive to the beach will be in three weeks? Or where your ex will be on a Friday night next month so that you can avoid him? Adam Sadilek, formerly of Microsoft, now a researcher at Google, and John Krumm, a principal researcher at […]
The Case for Abolishing the DHS
July 16th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: On Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano resigned to take up a post running California’s university system. With her departure, there are now 15 vacant positions at the top of the department. That suggests it would be a particularly humane moment to shut the whole thing down. The U.S. Department of Homeland […]
Water Requirements for NSA’s New Facility in Utah
July 15th, 2013“A significant benefit to the city” haha Via: KSL: More secrets, more water? The NSA data center in Bluffdale could require as many as 1.7 million gallons of water per day to operate and keep computers cool. Initial reported estimates suggested the center would use 1,200 gallons per minute, but more recent estimates suggest the […]
Technical Feasibility of Decrypting HTTPS by Replacing the Computer’s Pseudorandom Number Generator
July 15th, 2013Via: Stack Exchange: Intel has an on-chip RdRand function which supposedly bypasses the normally used entropy pool for /dev/urandom and directly injects output. Now rumors are going on that Intel works together with the NSA… and knowing that PRNGs are important for cryptography is enough to get this news spreading. I personally don’t believe this […]
The Amazon 1Button App Is Very Bad
July 14th, 2013I doubt that any of you have this installed, but just in case… Via: Kotowicz: Though intercepting HTTPS connections is possible, we can only do it via: hacking the CA social engineering (install the certificate) relying on click-through syndrome for SSL warnings Too hard. Let’s try some side channels. Let me show you how you […]
