Europe Considers Digital Independence

From the Register:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has lent her support to the idea of building
out new European data networks to help keep Europeans' email and other data out of the hands of US spies.

In the latest edition of her weekly podcast on Saturday, Merkel said she planned to raise the issue among other topics in a meeting with French President François Hollande this week.

"We'll talk, above all, about which European suppliers we have that provide security for the citizens," Merkel said, speaking in German, "that they need not cross the Atlantic with their emails and other things, but we can also build communications networks within Europe."

Kickstarter Compromised: Info Hacked

If you're on Kickstarter, you should probably be busy changing up your passwords.  From CNET:

Hackers hit crowd-funding site Kickstarter and made off with user information,
the site said Saturday.  Though no credit card information was taken, the site said, attackers made off with usernames, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.

"Actual passwords were not revealed, however it is possible for a malicious person with enough computing power to guess and crack an encrypted password, particularly a weak or obvious one," the site said in a blog post, adding that "as a precaution, we strongly recommend that you create a new password for your Kickstarter account, and other accounts where you use this password."

Quick, Everyone Panic! Bitcoin Weathers a Stormy Week

There have been some serious shenanigans in the Bitcoin community and economy in recent days.  The Mt. Gox exchange continues its downward spiral, while people who (inexplicably) provided control of their Bitcoin to Silk Road 2 got taken for a ride.  Here's one of the best rundowns on the Gox flaw that I've found online, from IEEE Spectrum:

Here's what a terrible week looks like in the world of Bitcoin: Two of the most trafficked Bitcoin exchanges, Mt. Gox and Bitstamp, temporarily halt trading and suspend bitcoin withdrawals in the midst of a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). On exchanges that are still open for business, the value of the currency takes a brutal, sudden hit and then continues to tumble. Bitcoin users notice strange errors in their wallet balances after making routine transactions. Rumor spreads that the Bitcoin protocol is critically flawed. And where rumor is lacking, conspiracy theories abound.  All this, and it's barely Thursday.

Word is that as of this morning, Bitstamp had begun allowing withdrawals once again. 

Nightmare: Comcast to Acquire Time Warner Cable

As if the internet and cable service of these two corporations weren't bad enough already!  One can only surmise that the service will we twice as bad if this merger is allowed to go through.  Media consolidation continues apace and represents a growing threat to the freedom of information in the United States.  I do not imagine that the Democratic and Republican parties, which are effectively nothing more than subsidiaries of these  corporations, will do much to prevent the further consolidation and monopolization of media in the United States. From Reuters:

Comcast Corp's proposed $45.2 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc could face close scrutiny from U.S. antitrust regulators because of the deal's potential to reshape the country's pay TV and broadband markets.

The company resulting from the merger of the top two U.S. cable service providers would boast a footprint spanning from New York to Los Angeles, with a near 30 percent share of the pay TV market as well as a strong position in providing broadband Internet services.

The all-stock deal, announced on Thursday, would put Comcast in 19 of the 20 largest U.S. TV markets, and could give it unprecedented leverage in negotiations with content providers and advertisers.

The situation is bad enough already . . .

Big Government and Big Business Collude to Outlaw Municipal Broadband

As if you needed another reason to detest the dictatorship of the two-party state.  From Ars Technica:

It's no secret that private Internet service providers hate when cities and towns decide to enter the telecommunications business themselves. But with private ISPs facing little competition and offering slow speeds for high prices, municipalities occasionally get fed up and decide to build their own broadband networks.

To prevent this assault on their lucrative revenue streams, ISPs have teamed up with friends in state legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult or impossible for cities and towns to offer broadband service.

Attorney James Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group has been fighting attempts to restrict municipal broadband projects for years. He's catalogued restrictions placed upon public Internet service in 20 states, and that number could be much higher already if not for the efforts of consumer advocates.

The Internet Strikes Back

From the reddit blog:

Today we must fight back against mass, suspicionless surveillance. Today we must protect both our civil liberties and the digital tools connecting us all.

Indiscriminate bulk surveillance programs by the NSA and their allies (detailed below) violate the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy.

In addition to individual privacy issues, these surveillance programs are damaging for online businesses like reddit. These programs undermine the basic freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables.  The potential for a business to be legally and secretly compelled to violate the privacy of both foreign and domestic users casts a pall over any U.S.-based site. In turn, this threatens to place U.S.-based internet companies, one of the most dynamic and booming sectors of our economy, at a global disadvantage.

Fortunately, there are real opportunities for reform, but they need our support. Please consider joining us in taking action today. Together we can push back against powers that seek to observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action. Together, we can make it clear that such behavior is not compatible with democratic governance. Together, if we persist, we will win this fight.

If you're in the U.S., Call Congress today. Dial 202-552-0505 or click here to enter your phone number and have the call tool connect you. Ask your legislators to oppose the FISA Improvements Act (a bill that attempts to legalize bulk data collection of phone records), support the USA Freedom Act (a bill that works to curtail NSA surveillance abuses), and enact protections for non-Americans. Details on these bills and other legislation can be found below.

Here's what you should say:

I'd like Senator/Representative __ to support and co-sponsor H.R. 3361/S. 1599, the USA Freedom Act. I would also like you to oppose S. 1631, the so-called FISA Improvements Act. Moreover, I'd like you to work to prevent the NSA from undermining encryption standards and to protect the privacy rights of non-Americans.

If you're not in the U.S., demand that privacy protections be instituted.

You can also join in one of the offline protests happening today around the world. A partial list is available at thedaywefightback.org/events.

Below are detailed resources on what the NSA is doing, what legislation is out there, and common excuses for NSA surveillance—and how to bust them, courtesy of the EFF.

Router Vulnerability Allows Easy Exploit

From the Hacker News:

In past months, we have reported about critical vulnerabilities in many wireless Routers including Netgear, Linksys, TP-LINK, Cisco, ASUS, TENDA and more vendors, installed by millions of home users worldwide.

Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska) recently noticed a large scale cyber attack ongoing campaign aimed at Polish e-banking users.

Cyber criminals are using known router vulnerability which allow attackers to change the router's DNS configuration remotely so they can lure users to fake bank websites or can perform Man-in-the-Middle attack . . .