Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
DOJ Asks Court To Keep Secret Any Partnership Between Google, NSA
March 12th, 2012Via: Legal Times: The Justice Department is defending the government’s refusal to discuss—or even acknowledge the existence of—any cooperative research and development agreement between Google and the National Security Agency. The Washington based advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center sued in federal district court here to obtain documents about any such agreement between the Internet […]
The Little White Box That Can Hack Your Network
March 4th, 2012Smaller organizations might not have the equipment or the expertise to defend against the Pwn Plug, but for enterprises to get nailed by this thing amounts to comedy gold. Note: The U.S. Department of Defense is a large Pwn Plug customer. *chortle* The first line of defense should be to train staff to resist social […]
Set Up Cameras Around Your House, Let Company Monitor Them for Marketing Purposes
March 3rd, 2012Oh sure. Why not? Via: Network World: The little cameras in your home are multiplying. There are the ones you bought, perhaps your SLR or digital camera, but also those that just kind of show up in your current phone, your old phone, your laptop, your game console, and soon your TV and set-top box. […]
U.S. Court Approves Warrantless Searches of Cell Phones
March 2nd, 2012Via: Reuters: U.S. police can search a cell phone for its number without having a warrant, according to a federal appeals court ruling. Officers in Indiana found a number of cell phones at the scene of a drug bust, and searched each phone for its telephone number. Having the numbers allowed the government to subpoena […]
Windows 8 Consumer Preview Presentation
February 29th, 2012I’m watching the live presentation that’s happening in Barcelona and it looks like Windows 8 is going to be using a cloud based log-in feature that is going to sync settings, and a lot of other stuff, across devices. I have no idea if there’s an opt out to let it function as a standalone […]
White House Pumped Millions Into NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Programs
February 28th, 2012Via: CBS: Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance. The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations […]
FBI Turns Off Thousands of GPS Devices After Supreme Court Ruling
February 26th, 2012Via: Wall Street Journal: The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a “sea change” inside the U.S. Justice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann. Mr. Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century” on Friday, said that […]
Facebook Has 25 Employees to Handle Requests for User Information from Law Enforcement
February 25th, 2012Via: Forbes: If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world and Joe Sullivan would be head of Homeland Security. … The dirt Facebook holds on its users makes it as attractive to cops as to criminals. Among Sullivan’s responsibilities are daily decisions about how much user information to give […]
Windows 8: Millions of PCs Will Get Kill Switches for the First Time
February 24th, 2012Via: Bloomberg: Janne Kytömäki, a Finnish software developer, was cruising Google’s (GOOG) Android Market for smartphone apps last year when he noticed something strange. Dozens of best-selling applications suddenly listed the same wrong publisher. It was as if Stephen King’s name had vanished from the covers of his books, replaced by an unknown author. Kytömäki […]
Google’s Heads-Up Display Glasses
February 22nd, 2012Via: New York Times: People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time. According to several Google employees familiar with the project who asked not […]
