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Paul Merrell

New York company says it can beam free OUTERNET Wi-fi to every person on Earth | Mail O... - 0 views

  • An ambitious project known as Outernet is aiming to launch hundreds of miniature satellites into low Earth orbit by June 2015Each satellite will broadcast the Internet to phones and computers giving billions of people across the globe free online accessCitizens of countries like China and North Korea that have censored online activity could be given free and unrestricted cyberspace'There's really nothing that is technically impossible to this'
  • You might think you have to pay through the nose at the moment to access the Internet.But one ambitious organisation called the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) is planning to turn the age of online computing on its head by giving free web access to every person on Earth.Known as Outernet, MDIF plans to launch hundreds of satellites into orbit by 2015.And they say the project could provide unrestricted Internet access to countries where their web access is censored, including China and North Korea.
  • Using something known as datacasting technology, which involves sending data over wide radio waves, the New York-based company says they'll be able to broadcast the Internet around the world.The group is hoping to raise tens of millions of dollars in donations to get the project on the road.
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  • The company's plan is to launch hundreds of low-cost miniature satellites, known as cubesats, into low Earth orbit.Here, each satellite will receive data from a network of ground stations across the globe.
  • THE OUTERNET PROJECT TIMELINEBy June of this year the Outernet project aims to begin deploying prototype satellites to test their technologyIn September 2014 they will make a request to NASA to test their technology on the International Space StationBy early 2015 they intend to begin manufacturing and launching their satellitesAnd in June 2015 the company says they will begin broadcasting the Outernet from space
Paul Merrell

YouTube gets the yuck out in comments cleanup | Internet & Media - CNET News - 0 views

  • Laugh all you want, fuzzball, but Google is changing how YouTube uploaders manage comments on their videos. The new system, which began rolling out to a limited number of uploaders on Tuesday, favors relevancy over recency and introduces enhanced moderation tools. The new commenting system, which is powered by Google+ and was developed in collaboration between the YouTube and Google+ teams, provides several new tools for moderation, said Nundu Janakiram, product manager at YouTube. It will default to showing YouTube viewers the most relevant comments first, such as those by the video uploader or channel owner. "Currently, you see comments from the last random person to stop by," Janakiram said. "The new system tries to surface the most meaningful conversation to you. We're trying to shift from comments to meaningful conversations," he said.
  • He explained that three main factors determine which comments are more relevant: community engagement by the commenter, up-votes for a particular comment, and commenter reputation. If you've been flagged for spam or abuse, don't be surprised to find your comments buried, but that also means that celebrities who have strong Google+ reputations will be boosted above others. There's more to the system than just relevancy, though. Because the system is powered by Google+, comments made on posts with YouTube links in the social network will show up on YouTube itself. So, you'll see comments from people in your Google+ Circles higher up, too. Just because it's powered by Google+ doesn't mean that you'll lose your YouTube identity, though. "You are still allowed to use pseudonyms," said Janakiram, whether you're "a Syrian dissident or SoulPancake". Another feature, and one that speaks directly to YouTube's goal of fostering conversations, is that you'll be able to comment publicly or privately to people in your Circles. Replies will be threaded like Gmail. The hope is that new moderation tools will make it easier for video owners to guide the conversation, Janakiram explained. "There have been challenges in the past with certain comments and what's been shown there."
Paul Merrell

US websites should inform EU citizens about NSA surveillance, says report - 0 views

  • All existing data sharing agreements between Europe and the US should be revoked, and US web site providers should prominently inform European citizens that their data may be subject to government surveillance, according to the recommendations of a briefing report for the European Parliament. The report was produced in response to revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA) snooping on internet traffic, and aims to highlight the subsequent effect on European Union (EU) citizens' rights.
  • The report warns that EU data protection authorities have failed to understand the “structural shift of data sovereignty implied by cloud computing”, and the associated risks to the rights of EU citizens. It suggests “a full industrial policy for development of an autonomous European cloud computing capacity” should be set up to reduce exposure of EU data to NSA surveillance that is undertaken by the use of US legislation that forces US-based cloud providers to provide access to data they hold.
  • To put pressure on the US government, the report recommends that US websites should ask EU citizens for their consent before gathering data that could be used by the NSA. “Prominent notices should be displayed by every US web site offering services in the EU to inform consent to collect data from EU citizens. The users should be made aware that the data may be subject to surveillance by the US government for any purpose which furthers US foreign policy,” it said. “A consent requirement will raise EU citizen awareness and favour growth of services solely within EU jurisdiction. This will thus have economic impact on US business and increase pressure on the US government to reach a settlement.”
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  • Other recommendations include the EU offering protection and rewards for whistleblowers, including “strong guarantees of immunity and asylum”. Such a move would be seen as a direct response to the plight of Edward Snowden, the former NSA analyst who leaked documents that revealed the extent of the NSA’s global internet surveillance programmes. The report also says that, “Encryption is futile to defend against NSA accessing data processed by US clouds,” and that there is “no technical solution to the problem”. It calls for the EU to press for changes to US law.
  • “It seems that the only solution which can be trusted to resolve the Prism affair must involve changes to the law of the US, and this should be the strategic objective of the EU,” it said. The report was produced for the European Parliament committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, and comes before the latest hearing of an inquiry into electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens, due to take place in Brussels on 24 September.
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    Yee-haw! E.U. sanctuary and rewards for NSA whistle-blowers. Mandatory warnings for customers of U.S. cloud services that their data may be turned over to the NSA. Pouring more gasoline on the NSA diplomatic fire. 
Paul Merrell

U.S. knocks plans for European communication network | Reuters - 0 views

  • The United States on Friday criticized proposals to build a European communication network to avoid emails and other data passing through the United States, warning that such rules could breach international trade laws. In its annual review of telecommunications trade barriers, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said impediments to cross-border data flows were a serious and growing concern.It was closely watching new laws in Turkey that led to the blocking of websites and restrictions on personal data, as well as calls in Europe for a local communications network following revelations last year about U.S. digital eavesdropping and surveillance."Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a 'Schengen cloud' by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them," the USTR said in the report.
  • Germany and France have been discussing ways to build a European network to keep data secure after the U.S. spying scandal. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone was reportedly monitored by American spies.The USTR said proposals by Germany's state-backed Deutsche Telekom to bypass the United States were "draconian" and likely aimed at giving European companies an advantage over their U.S. counterparts.Deutsche Telekom has suggested laws to stop data traveling within continental Europe being routed via Asia or the United States and scrapping the Safe Harbor agreement that allows U.S. companies with European-level privacy standards access to European data. (www.telekom.com/dataprotection)"Any mandatory intra-EU routing may raise questions with respect to compliance with the EU's trade obligations with respect to Internet-enabled services," the USTR said. "Accordingly, USTR will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals."
  • U.S. tech companies, the leaders in an e-commerce marketplace estimated to be worth up to $8 trillion a year, have urged the White House to undertake reforms to calm privacy concerns and fend off digital protectionism.
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    High comedy from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The USTR's press release is here along with a link to its report. http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/USTR-Targets-Telecommunications-Trade-Barriers The USTR is upset because the E.U. is aiming to build a digital communications network that does not route internal digital traffic outside the E.U., to limit the NSA's ability to surveil Europeans' communications. Part of the plan is to build an E.U.-centric cloud that is not susceptible to U.S. court orders. This plan does not, of course, sit well with U.S.-based cloud service providers.  Where the comedy comes in is that the USTR is making threats to go to the World Trade organization to block the E.U. move under the authority of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). But that treaty provides, in article XIV, that:  "Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where like conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on trade in services, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any Member of measures: ... (c)      necessary to secure compliance with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement including those relating to:   ... (ii)     the protection of the privacy of individuals in relation to the processing and dissemination of personal data and the protection of confidentiality of individual records and accounts[.]" http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/26-gats_01_e.htm#articleXIV   The E.U., in its Treaty on Human Rights, has very strong privacy protections for digital communications. The USTR undoubtedly knows all this, and that the WTO Appellate Panel's judges are of the European mold, sticklers for protection of human rights and most likely do not appreciate being subjects o
Paul Merrell

Anonymous' Airchat Aims to Allow Communication Without Needing Phone or Internet Access - 0 views

  • Online hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced that it is working on a new tool called Airchat which could allow people to communicate without the need for a phone or an internet connection - using radio waves instead. Anonymous, the amorphous group best known for attacking high profile targets like Sony and the CIA in recent years, said on the Lulz Labs project's Github page: "Airchat is a free communication tool [that] doesn't need internet infrastructure [or] a cell phone network. Instead it relies on any available radio link or device capable of transmitting audio." The idea is that people all over the world, including those in rural areas and developing countries, will one day be able to communicate for free without the need for a mobile phone network, phone line or internet access.
Paul Merrell

New open-source router firmware opens your Wi-Fi network to strangers | Ars Technica - 0 views

  • We’ve often heard security folks explain their belief that one of the best ways to protect Web privacy and security on one's home turf is to lock down one's private Wi-Fi network with a strong password. But a coalition of advocacy organizations is calling such conventional wisdom into question. Members of the “Open Wireless Movement,” including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Free Press, Mozilla, and Fight for the Future are advocating that we open up our Wi-Fi private networks (or at least a small slice of our available bandwidth) to strangers. They claim that such a random act of kindness can actually make us safer online while simultaneously facilitating a better allocation of finite broadband resources. The OpenWireless.org website explains the group’s initiative. “We are aiming to build technologies that would make it easy for Internet subscribers to portion off their wireless networks for guests and the public while maintaining security, protecting privacy, and preserving quality of access," its mission statement reads. "And we are working to debunk myths (and confront truths) about open wireless while creating technologies and legal precedent to ensure it is safe, private, and legal to open your network.”
  • One such technology, which EFF plans to unveil at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference next month, is open-sourced router firmware called Open Wireless Router. This firmware would enable individuals to share a portion of their Wi-Fi networks with anyone nearby, password-free, as Adi Kamdar, an EFF activist, told Ars on Friday. Home network sharing tools are not new, and the EFF has been touting the benefits of open-sourcing Web connections for years, but Kamdar believes this new tool marks the second phase in the open wireless initiative. Unlike previous tools, he claims, EFF’s software will be free for all, will not require any sort of registration, and will actually make surfing the Web safer and more efficient.
  • Kamdar said that the new firmware utilizes smart technologies that prioritize the network owner's traffic over others', so good samaritans won't have to wait for Netflix to load because of strangers using their home networks. What's more, he said, "every connection is walled off from all other connections," so as to decrease the risk of unwanted snooping. Additionally, EFF hopes that opening one’s Wi-Fi network will, in the long run, make it more difficult to tie an IP address to an individual. “From a legal perspective, we have been trying to tackle this idea that law enforcement and certain bad plaintiffs have been pushing, that your IP address is tied to your identity. Your identity is not your IP address. You shouldn't be targeted by a copyright troll just because they know your IP address," said Kamdar.
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  • While the EFF firmware will initially be compatible with only one specific router, the organization would like to eventually make it compatible with other routers and even, perhaps, develop its own router. “We noticed that router software, in general, is pretty insecure and inefficient," Kamdar said. “There are a few major players in the router space. Even though various flaws have been exposed, there have not been many fixes.”
Paul Merrell

2nd Cir. Affirms That Creation of Full-Text Searchable Database of Works Is Fair Use | ... - 0 views

  • The fair use doctrine permits the unauthorized digitization of copyrighted works in order to create a full-text searchable database, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled June 10.Affirming summary judgment in favor of a consortium of university libraries, the court also ruled that the fair use doctrine permits the unauthorized conversion of those works into accessible formats for use by persons with disabilities, such as the blind.
  • The dispute is connected to the long-running conflict between Google Inc. and various authors of books that Google included in a mass digitization program. In 2004, Google began soliciting the participation of publishers in its Google Print for Publishers service, part of what was then called the Google Print project, aimed at making information available for free over the Internet.Subsequently, Google announced a new project, Google Print for Libraries. In 2005, Google Print was renamed Google Book Search and it is now known simply as Google Books. Under this program, Google made arrangements with several of the world's largest libraries to digitize the entire contents of their collections to create an online full-text searchable database.The announcement of this program triggered a copyright infringement action by the Authors Guild that continues to this day.
  • Part of the deal between Google and the libraries included an offer by Google to hand over to the libraries their own copies of the digitized versions of their collections.In 2011, a group of those libraries announced the establishment of a new service, called the HathiTrust digital library, to which the libraries would contribute their digitized collections. This database of copies is to be made available for full-text searching and preservation activities. Additionally, it is intended to offer free access to works to individuals who have “print disabilities.” For works under copyright protection, the search function would return only a list of page numbers that a search term appeared on and the frequency of such appearance.
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  • Turning to the fair use question, the court first concluded that the full-text search function of the Hathitrust Digital Library was a “quintessentially transformative use,” and thus constituted fair use. The court said:the result of a word search is different in purpose, character, expression, meaning, and message from the page (and the book) from which it is drawn. Indeed, we can discern little or no resemblance between the original text and the results of the HDL full-text search.There is no evidence that the Authors write with the purpose of enabling text searches of their books. Consequently, the full-text search function does not “supersede[ ] the objects [or purposes] of the original creation.”Turning to the fourth fair use factor—whether the use functions as a substitute for the original work—the court rejected the argument that such use represents lost sales to the extent that it prevents the future development of a market for licensing copies of works to be used in full-text searches.However, the court emphasized that the search function “does not serve as a substitute for the books that are being searched.”
  • The court also rejected the argument that the database represented a threat of a security breach that could result in the full text of all the books becoming available for anyone to access. The court concluded that Hathitrust's assertions of its security measures were unrebutted.Thus, the full-text search function was found to be protected as fair use.
  • The court also concluded that allowing those with print disabilities access to the full texts of the works collected in the Hathitrust database was protected as fair use. Support for this conclusion came from the legislative history of the Copyright Act's fair use provision, 17 U.S.C. §107.
Paul Merrell

The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible | Ele... - 0 views

  • Over the past year, as the Snowden revelations have rolled out, the government and its apologists have developed a set of talking points about mass spying that the public has now heard over and over again. From the President, to Hilary Clinton to Rep. Mike Rogers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and many others, the arguments are often eerily similar. But as we approach the one year anniversary, it’s time to call out the key claims that have been thoroughly debunked and insist that the NSA apologists retire them.  So if you hear any one of these in the future, you can tell yourself straight up: “this person isn’t credible,” and look elsewhere for current information about the NSA spying. And if these are still in your talking points (you know who you are) it’s time to retire them if you want to remain credible. And next time, the talking points should stand the test of time.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Reconciling Mozilla's Mission and W3C EME ✩ Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer... - 1 views

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    "May 19 Update: We've added an FAQ below the text of the original post to address some of the questions and comments Mozilla has received regarding EME. With most competing browsers and the content industry embracing the W3C EME specification, Mozilla has little choice but to implement EME as well so our users can continue to access all content they want to enjoy. Read on for some background on how we got here, and details of our implementation."
simplykreative

asics of SASS - 1 views

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    Sass, Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets, is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more.
simplykreative

Keep These Rock Strong to Succeed in Web Design - 0 views

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    Visual strength of a design is the most important factor that controls the flow and influences the decisions of a user
Fabien Cadet

2014-07: Programming Is Not Math « Sarah Mei, article - 1 views

  • The best developers today work on teams, and they do well IFF they know how to communicate – via their code, and directly with other people.
  • As one of my favorite programming books once said, “programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”
simplykreative

15+ Best Free Css Transition Effects - 0 views

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    In this post I'm going to show you some great animations that you can add to your webpages using CSS3 and HTML.
simplykreative

HTML5 Download Attribute - 0 views

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    Files with extension .pdf, .txt, and .doc or image file won't be downloaded and will be opened in the browser. To overcome this issue use the download attribute from html5.
Paul Merrell

Republicans seek fast-track repeal of net neutrality | Ars Technica - 0 views

  • Republicans in Congress yesterday unveiled a new plan to fast track repeal of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules. Introduced by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and 14 Republican co-sponsors, the "Resolution of Disapproval" would use Congress' fast track powers under the Congressional Review Act to cancel the FCC's new rules.
  • Saying the resolution "would require only a simple Senate majority to pass under special procedural rules of the Congressional Review Act," Collins' announcement called it "the quickest way to stop heavy-handed agency regulations that would slow Internet speeds, increase consumer prices and hamper infrastructure development, especially in his Northeast Georgia district." Republicans can use this method to bypass Democratic opposition in the Senate by requiring just a simple majority rather than 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but "it would still face an almost certain veto from President Obama," National Journal wrote. "Other attempts to fast-track repeals of regulations in the past have largely been unsuccessful." This isn't the only Republican effort to overturn the FCC's net neutrality rules. Another, titled the "Internet Freedom Act," would wipe out the new net neutrality regime. Other Republican proposals would enforce some form of net neutrality rules while limiting the FCC's power to regulate broadband.
  • The FCC's rules also face lawsuits from industry consortiums that represent broadband providers. USTelecom filed suit yesterday just after the publication of the rules in the Federal Register. Today, the CTIA Wireless Association, National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and American Cable Association (ACA) all filed lawsuits to overturn the FCC's Open Internet Order. The CTIA and NCTA are the most prominent trade groups representing the cable and wireless industries. The ACA, which represents smaller providers, said it supports net neutrality rules but opposes the FCC's decision to reclassify broadband as a common carrier service. However, a previous court decision ruled that the FCC could not impose the rules without reclassifying broadband.
Paul Merrell

Hackers Prove Fingerprints Are Not Secure, Now What? | nsnbc international - 0 views

  • The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently revealed that an estimated 5.6 million government employees were affected by the hack; and not 1.1 million as previously assumed.
  • Samuel Schumach, spokesman for the OPM, said: “As part of the government’s ongoing work to notify individuals affected by the theft of background investigation records, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Defense have been analyzing impacted data to verify its quality and completeness. Of the 21.5 million individuals whose Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information were impacted by the breach, the subset of individuals whose fingerprints have been stolen has increased from a total of approximately 1.1 million to approximately 5.6 million.” This endeavor expended the use of the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Pentagon. Schumer added that “if, in the future, new means are developed to misuse the fingerprint data, the government will provide additional information to individuals whose fingerprints may have been stolen in this breach.” However, we do not need to wait for the future for fingerprint data to be misused and coveted by hackers.
  • Look no further than the security flaws in Samsung’s new Galaxy 5 smartphone as was demonstrated by researchers at Security Research Labs (SRL) showing how fingerprints, iris scans and other biometric identifiers could be fabricated and yet authenticated by the Apple Touch ID fingerprints scanner. The shocking part of this demonstration is that this hack was achieved less than 2 days after the technology was released to the public by Apple. Ben Schlabs, researcher for SRL explained: “We expected we’d be able to spoof the S5’s Finger Scanner, but I hoped it would at least be a challenge. The S5 Finger Scanner feature offers nothing new except—because of the way it is implemented in this Android device—slightly higher risk than that already posed by previous devices.” Schlabs and other researchers discovered that “the S5 has no mechanism requiring a password when encountering a large number of incorrect finger swipes.” By rebotting the smartphone, Schlabs could force “the handset to accept an unlimited number of incorrect swipes without requiring users to enter a password [and] the S5 fingerprint authenticator [could] be associated with sensitive banking or payment apps such as PayPal.”
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  • Schlab said: “Perhaps most concerning is that Samsung does not seem to have learned from what others have done less poorly. Not only is it possible to spoof the fingerprint authentication even after the device has been turned off, but the implementation also allows for seemingly unlimited authentication attempts without ever requiring a password. Incorporation of fingerprint authentication into highly sensitive apps such as PayPal gives a would-be attacker an even greater incentive to learn the simple skill of fingerprint spoofing.” Last year Hackers from the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) proved Apple wrong when the corporation insisted that their new iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor is “a convenient and highly secure way to access your phone.” CCC stated that it is as easy as stealing a fingerprint from a drinking glass – and anyone can do it.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Troubleshot & repair Linux networks | Linux User & Developer - the Linux and FOSS mag f... - 1 views

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    "Posted by Gavin Thomas No network connection on your laptop or problems with your web hosting? We're here to help "The Network is the computer," is the famous, prescient quote made by Sun Microsystem's chief scientist and employee number five, John Gage, in 1984. The growth of the web, mobile and cloud computing have borne out that phrase, and a computer without a network connection is just an expensive paperweight."
Paul Merrell

Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA's Not The Only One | Just Security - 0 views

  • If anyone in the United States Senate had any doubts that the proposed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) was universally hated by a range of civil society groups, a literal blizzard of faxes should’ve cleared up the issue by now. What’s not getting attention is a CISA “alternative” introduced last week by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va) and Susan Collins (R-Me). Dubbed the “FISMA Reform Act,” the authors make the following claims about the bill:  This legislation would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to operate intrusion detection and prevention capabilities on all federal agencies on the .gov domain. The bipartisan bill would also direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct risk assessments of any network within the government domain. The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to operate defensive countermeasures on these networks once a cyber threat has been detected. The legislation would strengthen and streamline the authority Congress gave to DHS last year to issue binding operational directives to federal agencies, especially to respond to substantial cyber security threats in emergency circumstances.
  • The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to report to Congress annually on the extent to which OMB has exercised its existing authority to enforce government wide cyber security standards. On the surface, it actually sounds like a rational response to the disastrous OPM hack. Unfortunately, the Warner-Collins bill has some vague or problematic language and non-existent definitions that make it potentially just as dangerous for data security and privacy as CISA. The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to carry out cyber security activities “in conjunction with other agencies and the private sector” [for] “assessing and fostering the development of information security technologies and capabilities for use across multiple agencies.” While the phrase “information sharing” is not present in this subsection, “security technologies and capabilities” is more than broad — and vague — enough to allow it.
  • The bill would also allow the secretary to “acquire, intercept, retain, use, and disclose communications and other system traffic that are transiting to or from or stored on agency information systems and deploy countermeasures with regard to the communications and system traffic.”
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  • The bill also allows the head of a federal agency or department “to disclose to the Secretary or a private entity providing assistance to the Secretary…information traveling to or from or stored on an agency information system, notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary.” (Emphasis added.) So confidential, proprietary or other information otherwise precluded from disclosure under laws like HIPAA or the Privacy Act get waived if the Secretary of DHS or an agency head feel that your email needs to be shared with a government contracted outfit like the Hacking Team for analysis. And the bill explicitly provides for just this kind of cyber threat analysis outsourcing:
  • (3) PRIVATE ENTITIES. — The Secretary may enter into contracts or other agreements, or otherwise request and obtain the assistance of, private entities that provide electronic communication or information security services to acquire, intercept, retain, use, and disclose communications and other system traffic in accordance with this subsection. The bill further states that the content of your communications, will be retained only if the communication is associated with a known or reasonably suspected information security threat, and communications and system traffic will not be subject to the operation of a countermeasure unless associated with the threats. (Emphasis added.) “Reasonably suspected” is about as squishy a definition as one can find.
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    "The bill also allows the head of a federal agency or department "to disclose to the Secretary or a private entity providing assistance to the Secretary…information traveling to or from or stored on an agency information system, notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary."" Let's see: if your information is intercepted by the NSA and stored on its "information system" in Bluffdale, Utah, then it can be disclosed to the Secretary of DHS or any private entity providing him/her with assistance, "notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary." And if NSA just happens to be intercepting every digital bit of data generated or received in the entire world, including the U.S., then it's all in play, "notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary.". Sheesh! Our government voyeurs never stop trying to get more nude pix and videos to view.  
Paul Merrell

Security Experts Oppose Government Access to Encrypted Communication - The New York Times - 0 views

  • An elite group of security technologists has concluded that the American and British governments cannot demand special access to encrypted communications without putting the world’s most confidential data and critical infrastructure in danger.A new paper from the group, made up of 14 of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers and computer scientists, is a formidable salvo in a skirmish between intelligence and law enforcement leaders, and technologists and privacy advocates. After Edward J. Snowden’s revelations — with security breaches and awareness of nation-state surveillance at a record high and data moving online at breakneck speeds — encryption has emerged as a major issue in the debate over privacy rights.
  • That has put Silicon Valley at the center of a tug of war. Technology companies including Apple, Microsoft and Google have been moving to encrypt more of their corporate and customer data after learning that the National Security Agency and its counterparts were siphoning off digital communications and hacking into corporate data centers.
  • Yet law enforcement and intelligence agency leaders argue that such efforts thwart their ability to monitor kidnappers, terrorists and other adversaries. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to ban encrypted messages altogether. In the United States, Michael S. Rogers, the director of the N.S.A., proposed that technology companies be required to create a digital key to unlock encrypted data, but to divide the key into pieces and secure it so that no one person or government agency could use it alone.The encryption debate has left both sides bitterly divided and in fighting mode. The group of cryptographers deliberately issued its report a day before James B. Comey Jr., the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Sally Quillian Yates, the deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the concerns that they and other government agencies have that encryption technologies will prevent them from effectively doing their jobs.
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  • The new paper is the first in-depth technical analysis of government proposals by leading cryptographers and security thinkers, including Whitfield Diffie, a pioneer of public key cryptography, and Ronald L. Rivest, the “R” in the widely used RSA public cryptography algorithm. In the report, the group said any effort to give the government “exceptional access” to encrypted communications was technically unfeasible and would leave confidential data and critical infrastructure like banks and the power grid at risk. Handing governments a key to encrypted communications would also require an extraordinary degree of trust. With government agency breaches now the norm — most recently at the United States Office of Personnel Management, the State Department and the White House — the security specialists said authorities could not be trusted to keep such keys safe from hackers and criminals. They added that if the United States and Britain mandated backdoor keys to communications, China and other governments in foreign markets would be spurred to do the same.
  • “Such access will open doors through which criminals and malicious nation-states can attack the very individuals law enforcement seeks to defend,” the report said. “The costs would be substantial, the damage to innovation severe and the consequences to economic growth hard to predict. The costs to the developed countries’ soft power and to our moral authority would also be considerable.”
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    Our system of government does not expect that every criminal will be apprehended and convicted. There are numerous values our society believes are more important. Some examples: [i] a presumption of innocence unless guilt is established beyond any reasonable doubt; [ii] the requirement that government officials convince a neutral magistrate that they have probable cause to believe that a search or seizure will produce evidence of a crime; [iii] many communications cannot be compelled to be disclosed and used in evidence, such as attorney-client communications, spousal communications, and priest-penitent communications; and [iv] etc. Moral of my story: the government needs a much stronger reason to justify interception of communications than saying, "some crooks will escape prosecution if we can't do that." We have a right to whisper to each other, concealing our communicatons from all others. Why does the right to whisper privately disappear if our whisperings are done electronically? The Supreme Court took its first step on a very slippery slope when it permitted wiretapping in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S. Ct. 564, 72 L. Ed. 944 (1928). https://goo.gl/LaZGHt It's been a long slide ever since. It's past time to revisit Olmstead and recognize that American citizens have the absolute right to communicate privately. "The President … recognizes that U.S. citizens and institutions should have a reasonable expectation of privacy from foreign or domestic intercept when using the public telephone system." - Brent Scowcroft, U.S. National Security Advisor, National Security Decision Memorandum 338 (1 September 1976) (Nixon administration), http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdm-ford/nsdm-338.pdf   
Paul Merrell

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange warns: Google is not what it seems - 0 views

  • Back in 2011, Julian Assange met up with Eric Schmidt for an interview that he considers the best he’s ever given. That doesn’t change, however, the opinion he now has about Schmidt and the company he represents, Google.In fact, the WikiLeaks leader doesn’t believe in the famous “Don’t Be Evil” mantra that Google has been preaching for years.Assange thinks both Schmidt and Google are at the exact opposite spectrum.“Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has. Schmidt’s tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of US power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive megacorporation. But Google has always been comfortable with this proximity,” Assange writes in an opinion piece for Newsweek.
  • “Long before company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin hired Schmidt in 2001, their initial research upon which Google was based had been partly funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). And even as Schmidt’s Google developed an image as the overly friendly giant of global tech, it was building a close relationship with the intelligence community,” Assange continues.Throughout the lengthy article, Assange goes on to explain how the 2011 meeting came to be and talks about the people the Google executive chairman brought along - Lisa Shields, then vice president of the Council on Foreign Relationship, Jared Cohen, who would later become the director of Google Ideas, and Scott Malcomson, the book’s editor, who would later become the speechwriter and principal advisor to Susan Rice.“At this point, the delegation was one part Google, three parts US foreign-policy establishment, but I was still none the wiser.” Assange goes on to explain the work Cohen was doing for the government prior to his appointment at Google and just how Schmidt himself plays a bigger role than previously thought.In fact, he says that his original image of Schmidt, as a politically unambitious Silicon Valley engineer, “a relic of the good old days of computer science graduate culture on the West Coast,” was wrong.
  • However, Assange concedes that that is not the sort of person who attends Bilderberg conferences, who regularly visits the White House, and who delivers speeches at the Davos Economic Forum.He claims that Schmidt’s emergence as Google’s “foreign minister” did not come out of nowhere, but it was “presaged by years of assimilation within US establishment networks of reputation and influence.” Assange makes further accusations that, well before Prism had even been dreamed of, the NSA was already systematically violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under its director at the time, Michael Hayden. He states, however, that during the same period, namely around 2003, Google was accepting NSA money to provide the agency with search tools for its rapidly-growing database of information.Assange continues by saying that in 2008, Google helped launch the NGA spy satellite, the GeoEye-1, into space and that the search giant shares the photographs from the satellite with the US military and intelligence communities. Later on, 2010, after the Chinese government was accused of hacking Google, the company entered into a “formal information-sharing” relationship with the NSA, which would allow the NSA’s experts to evaluate the vulnerabilities in Google’s hardware and software.
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  • “Around the same time, Google was becoming involved in a program known as the “Enduring Security Framework” (ESF), which entailed the sharing of information between Silicon Valley tech companies and Pentagon-affiliated agencies at network speed.’’Emails obtained in 2014 under Freedom of Information requests show Schmidt and his fellow Googler Sergey Brin corresponding on first-name terms with NSA chief General Keith Alexander about ESF,” Assange writes.Assange seems to have a lot of backing to his statements, providing links left and right, which people can go check on their own.
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    The "opinion piece for Newsweek" is an excerpt from Assange's new book, When Google met Wikileaks.  The chapter is well worth the read. http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447
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