62215139
submission
AHuxley writes:
The http://thedesk.matthewkeys.net... reports on a FOIA request covering "... all e-mails sent by Edward Snowden"
Remember how Snowden should have raised his concerns with his superiors within the NSA?
Remember how no such communication could be found?
Remember how one such communication was released but did not seem to be raising direct concerns?
Well some record of e-mail communications seems to exist but they are exempt from public disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
62009861
submission
AHuxley writes:
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Australian federal and state police are using a no warrant cell phone tower metadata access technique called a "tower dump".
A "tower dump" provides the identity, activity and location of all cell phones that connect a cellphone tower(s) over time (an hour or two). The metadata from thousands of phones and numbers connected are then sorted. Australian law-enforcement agencies made 330,000 requests for metadata in 2012-13.
Some US views on the same legal issues:
Judge Questions Tools That Grab Cellphone Data on Innocent People (Oct 22, 2012)
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/20...
Will Telcos Follow ISPs and Extend Warrant Protection for All? (JUNE 17, 2014)
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eff.org%2Fdeeplinks%2F...
"Lawsuit seeks details on Chicago Police purchases of cellular tracking gear" (June 10, 2014)
http://www.suntimes.com/news/m...
"Records from more than 125 police agencies in 33 states revealed one in four used a tactic called a “tower dump,”...."
55110185
submission
AHuxley writes:
A team of eight antiwar activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and removed at least 1000 documents.
Once removed and sorted, the bulk of the files showed FBI spying on US political groups. Cointelpro had been found.
43 year later more details about how the anonymously packages ended up with select US reporters weeks later.
Years later the full extent of COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram) was finally understood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
54875045
submission
AHuxley writes:
The American Civil Liberties Union sought to challenge the Ul legal "border exemption" three years ago.
Can your laptop be seized and searched at the border?
A 32 page decision provides new legal insight into legal thinking around suspicion less searches, making copies, keeping copies.
"think twice about the information you carry on your laptop.."
“Is it really necessary to have so much information accessible to you on your computer?”
i.e. your electronic devices searchable and sizeable for any reason at the U.S. border.
ACLU may appeal. The decision: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aclu.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fassets%2Fabidor_decision.pdf
Also note the Kool-Aid comment.
51269293
submission
AHuxley writes:
With the US trying to understand the domestic role of their foreign intelligence and counterintelligence services in 2013, what can a declassified look back into the 1960's and 1970's add to the ongoing legal debate?
Welcome to the world of Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the work done by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
Read about prominent anti-war critics and US senators been tracked and who was on the late 1960's NSA watch list.
From Rev. Martin Luther King to civil rights leader Whitney Young, boxer Muhammad Ali, Tom Wicker, the Washington bureau chief and Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald, Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.).
The NSA was aware of the legality of its work and removed all logos or classification markings, using the term 'For Background Use Only".
Even back then NSA director at the time, Lew Allen noted: “appeared to be a possible violation of constitutional guarantees,” page 86:
via http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/docs/doc%205%202008-021%20Burr%20Release%20Document%202%20-%20Part%20B.pdf
What did the NSA think about signals intelligence sites in your country? See if your country makes the "indefinite" list on page 392:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/docs/doc%201%202008-021%20Burr%20Release%20Document%201%20-%20Part%20A2.pdf
28499439
submission
AHuxley writes:
delimiter.com.au has news on ISP data retention ideas in Australia.
Australia would like to follow the EU down the "European Directive on Data Retention" path.
Australian law enforcement agencies may have the option to request a log of all a users of interest telco usage without any review or time limits.
Another option would be for local politics eg. an activist community. Data retention over a postcode (suburb).
The data collection could also be out sourced to private contractors.
19288340
submission
AHuxley writes:
The hometownannapolis reports on a new cyber curriculum at a local high school to feed the ever growing needs of the NSA and Cyber Command.
A quote from Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) about job growth in the local national security sector stands out: “In 10 years, we will be larger than Silicon Valley,”
Could the new funding for the expansion of the National Security Agency and the Army's new Cyber Command be the next big growth area for the US?
18784662
submission
AHuxley writes:
cnet.com is reporting Apple has tapped security expert and author David Rice to be its director of global security.
A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has a master's degree in Information Warfare and Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He served as a Global Network Vulnerability analyst (Forbes used cryptographer) for the National Security Agency and as a Special Duty Cryptologic officer for the Navy.
He is executive director of the Monterey Group, a cybersecurity consulting firm. He's also on the faculty of IANS, an information security research company and works with the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit.
In a 2008 interview with forbes "A Tax On Buggy Software" Rice talks of a "tax on software based on the number and severity of its security bugs. Even if that means passing those costs to consumers"
"Back in the '70s, the U.S. had a huge problem with sulfur dioxide emissions. Now we tax those emissions, and coal power plants have responded by using better filters.
Software vulnerabilities, like pollution, are inevitable--producing perfect software is impossible. So instead of saying all software must be secure, we tax insecurity and allow the market to determine the price it's willing to pay for vulnerability in software. Those who are the worst "emitters" of vulnerabilities end up paying the most, and it creates an economic incentive to manufacture more secure software."
18461488
submission
AHuxley writes:
The Miami-Dade Police Department recently finalized a deal to buy a 20-pound drone from defense firm Honeywell.
The drone can fly for 40 minutes, reach heights of 10,500 feet and cruise in the air at 46 miles an hour.
As the Miami-Dade Police Department has recently made a lot of budget cuts the funding may have come from a federal grant.
A an eye in the sky like over Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be looking down over South Florida "to keep people safe"
Honeywell has applied to the FAA for clearance to fly the drone in urban areas.
14817088
submission
AHuxley writes:
The US Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."
It turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images.
The U.S. Marshals Service admitted that it had saved ~35,314 images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.
The images where stored on a Brijot Gen2 machine. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction to stop the TSA's body scanning program.
13656990
submission
AHuxley writes:
US law enforcement bodies view the sale of instant messaging service ICQ to a Russian company as a threat to homeland security.
The US notes it is sure that most criminals use ICQ and, therefore, constant access to the ICQ servers is needed to track them down.
As the system is based in Israel, American security service have had access.
In spring 2010, Russia’s largest Internet investment company, Digital Sky Technologies purchased of the service for $187 million from AOL
13565912
submission
AHuxley writes:
A VPN flaw announced at Cipher conference in Sweden allows individual users to be identified.
When using IPv6 and PPTP the hidden IP address of a user can be found, as well as the MAC.
The Swedish anti-piracy bureau could already be gathering data using the exploit.
8499284
submission
AHuxley writes:
The FBI via the Office of Management and Budget would like to find out more about your information technology expertise if you are part of InfraGard.
Terms like "practical utility" are been collected under a 60-Day emergency notice of information collection via the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
Is your boss or cubicle colleague part of InfraGard? The private non-profit organization run as a public-private partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Are they passing info back about your company, office politics, or noting your political views?
6994122
submission
AHuxley writes:
Russian police officer Alexei Dymovsky has released a series of videos in full full uniform calling out corruption and asking Prime Minister Putin to act.
“Maybe you don’t know about us, about simple cops, who live and work and love their work. I’m ready to tell you everything. I’m not scared of my own death,”
"“I will show you the life of cops in Russia, how it is lived, with all the corruption and all the rest – with ignorance, rudeness, recklessness, with honest officers killed because they have stupid bosses.”"
His series of three 2-to-7-minute long videos released over the past week have together garnered 1 million hits on YouTube, and have spread across Russia.
Dymovsky was promptly fired after the clips spread across the internet, and a local prosecutor has opened an investigation into libel.
An interior ministry source accused him of working for foreign agents and hinted that the format of Dymovsky’s complaint was a problem, using a medium that remains largely free of government control.
Google cache link http://tinyurl.com/ye3spfm
6387285
submission
AHuxley writes:
The FBI is getting fast new systems to look at local North Carolina license photos via the DMV.
As the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos they use the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.
The system takes seconds to look at chin widths and nose sizes.
The expand technology used on millions of motorist could be rolled out across the USA.
The FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System is also getting an upgrade to DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans
