Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age.
Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links—techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals.
People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with suspects who use new communications technology, including some types of online chat and encryption tools. The use of such communications, which can't be wiretapped like a phone, is called "going dark" among law enforcement . . .
The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.'s GOOG +1.82% Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. Google declined to comment.
Government Increasingly Using Hacking Tools
From the Wall Street Journal:
Surveillance Society Security Hysteria: Police Harrassing People for Their Internet Search Habits
We should be surprised to read stories like this, but unfortunately, it is not surprising at all. From The Guardian:
It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led to six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did my husband and I know that our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things were creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history.
Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in "these times" now. And in these times, when things like the Boston bombing happen, you spend a lot of time on the internet reading about it and, if you are my exceedingly curious, news junkie 20-year-old son, you click a lot of links when you read the myriad of stories. You might just read a CNN piece about how bomb making instructions are readily available on the internet and you will in all probability, if you are that kid, click the link provided.
Drip: New Leaked Documents Reveal NSA Program to Gather "Nearly Everything a User Does on the Internet"
New revelations about the breadth and depth of the US Federal Government's totalitarian global surveillance system from Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian:
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet. The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
Irony Alert: Microsoft Asks Google to Remove Links to their Own Website
From Torrent Freak:
Earlier this week we reported that Google has already received takedown requests for more than 100 million URLs this year. While most of the submitted URLs do indeed link to infringing content, not all requests received by Google are correct.
The automated systems used by many of the copyright holders often trigger notices that include links to perfectly legitimate content, and sometimes even their own work. The latter happened in a recent DMCA takedown request sent by LeakID on behalf of Microsoft. Instead of listing URLs of infringing material, Microsoft asked Google to remove links to their own websites . . .
Tech Companies Debunk Claims of Copyright Trolls
From Torrent Freak:
On Thursday the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet organized a hearing on the role of copyright as a driver of innovation in the United States . . .
The CCIA, which includes members such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook, submitted a statement debunking what they see as copyright industry propaganda. The tech industry association explains that tougher copyright can actually hinder innovation.
“Arguments that ever stronger regulation incentivizes innovation overlook the ways in which excessive protection can inhibit innovation,” the CCIA writes.
“Every year that a work is covered by a copyright is a year that subsequent users cannot build on that work. While incremental protection may provide additional reward to the author, society pays for this reward by being deprived of follow-on use, while the author and his or her heirs accumulate profits.”
“For this reason, protection exceeding the amount necessary to incentivize innovation represents a dead weight loss to the economy” . . .
Instagram Hack Serves Up Fruit
Here's a funny little story from The Next Web:
An Instagram hack that posts pictures of fruit to users’ timelines has returned. We last saw the issue back in June. Once again, the images – often of fruit but sometimes (as The Verge notes) of smoothies – are accompanied by text suggesting that the user is trying a new diet and encouraging others to follow a link that has been inserted into their bio.
US Tech Companies Take Economic Hit in Aftermath of Surveillance Revelations
From the Washington Post:
There has been a lot of speculation that the revelations about NSA surveillance program PRISM damaged the credibility of U.S. tech companies, especially with international clients who were the primary targets of the snooping operation. But now it’s starting to look like the snooping is hitting U.S.-based cloud providers where it really hurts: Their pocketbooks.
Computer World UK reports a recent Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) survey found 10 percent of 207 officials at non-U.S. companies canceled contracts with U.S. providers after the leaks, and 56 percent of non-U.S. respondents are now hesitant to work with U.S.-based cloud operators.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)