The Data Security Defense Race

Are we in for a defense and arms race between tech firms or groups dedicated to user privacy and government or corporate entities that seek to undermine that privacy?  From Wired:

Technology companies are enabling security features that make certain types of government surveillance extremely difficult, and it’s a trend that’s set to continue. That’s why the U.S. government has long wanted laws that force tech companies to make their products wiretap friendly. . . .

In fact, advancements in the usability of cryptographic protocols have made anti-surveillance features relatively simple for technology companies to bake into their communications products. And public demand for greater security and privacy in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations may make it virtually obligatory for them to do so before new wiretapping laws can be introduced.

This heralds a looming standoff between technology companies and government . . . 

Password Security: Is Bigger Better?

From Ars Technica:

For the first time, the freely available password cracker ocl-Hashcat-plus is able to tackle passcodes with as many as 55 characters. It's an improvement that comes as more and more people are relying on long passcodes and phrases to protect their website accounts and other online assets.

Until now, ocl-Hashcat-plus, the Hashcat version that can use dozens of graphics cards to simultaneously crack huge numbers of cryptographic hashes, has limited guesses to 15 or fewer characters. (oclHashcat-lite and Hashcat have supported longer passwords, but these programs frequently take much longer to work.) Released over the weekend, ocl-Hashcat-plus version 0.15 can generally accommodate passwords with lengths of 55 characters. Depending on the hash that's being targeted and the types of cracking techniques being used, the maximum can grow as high as 64 characters or as low as 24.

New Gadget Provides Electrical Shock to Deter Facebook Use

From the LV Guardian:

Two PhD candidates were tired of being addicted to Facebook. They are after all, extremely busy with studying and need less interruptions and more focus. These two scholarly-aimed students decided to create an end to their Facebook distraction. Robert R. Morris and Dan McDuff put their collectively intelligent minds together, and devised a novel way to stop wandering minds and mouse clicks. The video at the end of this article, shows how the Pavlov Poke works. It is an accessory for the keyboard, where a user’s wrist rests upon it. Script is inputted for specific sites, say like Facebook; once the user has moved over to that site for a specific amount of time, the system releases a shock to jolt the user back to their studying habits . . .

Taxpayers Cover Costs of their Own Illegal Surveillance

From Engadget:

The mounting national debt? Yeah, you're probably better off just ignoring why exactly it's mounting. The Guardian is continuing the blow the lid off of the whole NSA / PRISM saga, today revealing new documents that detail how the NSA paid out "millions" of dollars to cover PRISM compliance costs for a multitude of monolithic tech outfits. As the story goes, the National Security Agency (hence, tax dollars from American taxpayers) coughed up millions "to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the PRISM surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional." The likes of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are expressly named, and while Google is still angling for permission to reveal more about its side of the story, other firms have conflicting tales.

Huffington Post to Prohibit Anonymous Comments: Huffington Attacks Anonymous Speech

The Huffington Post, reportedly, will soon do away with the option of anonymous commenting on its website.  Justifying the change, Huffington herself cited the aggressiveness and ugliness of internet trolls and apparently argued that free speech rights essentially should not be extended to individuals who have not submitted to some kind of vetting process.  From the Boston Globe:

The days of anonymous commenting on The Huffington Post are numbered. Founder Arianna Huffington said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in Boston Wednesday that the online news site plans to require users to comment on stories under their real names, beginning next month.

“Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they’re saying and not hiding behind anonymity,” she said. . . .

This last statement is highly offensive, no?  Freedom of expression is not "given" or granted to anyone, it is a human right.  I guess Huffington would have told the authors of the Federalist Papers to take a hike.

Facebook-Led Tech Group Seeks to Expand Internet Access

From the New York Times:

On Wednesday, Facebook announced an effort aimed at drastically cutting the cost of delivering basic Internet services on mobile phones, particularly in developing countries, where Facebook and other tech companies need to find new users. Half a dozen of the world’s tech giants, including Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson, have agreed to work with the company as partners on the initiative, which they call Internet.org.

The companies intend to accomplish their goal in part by simplifying phone applications so they run more efficiently and by improving the components of phones and networks so that they transmit more data while using less battery power.

Mother Jones Profiles a Few Meshnets

From Mother Jones:

JOSEPH BONICIOLI mostly uses the same internet you and I do. He pays a service provider a monthly fee to get him online. But to talk to his friends and neighbors in Athens, Greece, he's also got something much weirder and more interesting: a private, parallel internet.

He and his fellow Athenians built it. They did so by linking up a set of rooftop wifi antennas to create a "mesh," a sort of bucket brigade that can pass along data and signals. It's actually faster than the Net we pay for: Data travels through the mesh at no less than 14 megabits a second, and up to 150 Mbs a second, about 30 times faster than the commercial pipeline I get at home. Bonicioli and the others can send messages, video chat, and trade huge files without ever appearing on the regular internet. And it's a pretty big group of people: Their Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network has more than 1,000 members, from Athens proper to nearby islands. Anyone can join for free by installing some equipment. "It's like a whole other web," Bonicioli told me recently. "It's our network, but it's also a playground."

Indeed, the mesh has become a major social hub . . .