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We all live in public, at least as far as the US National Security Agency is concerned. As Internet users and global citizens become more aware of surveillance activities that the US and other countries are doing on the World Wide Web, there are those who seek to ensure that privacy and personal freedoms aren't trampled upon. Tor technology aims to help appease privacy advocates and offer a way in which the Internet can be enjoyed without the prying eyes of surveillance programs or other tracking software. This free piece of software has certainly become mainstream in light of recent events, but what is Tor and why does it matter to you, your family, neighbors, co-workers, and the rest of the Internet? Peeling back the onion layers It might surprise you that the Tor Project, originally an acronym for The Onion Router Project, was initially funded by the US Naval Research Laboratory and helped launch the development of onion routing (anonymous communication over a computer network) on behalf of DARPA. It had also received the backing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. When users installed Tor software onto their computers, it would conceal their identity and network activity from anyone spying on their behavior. This was accomplished by separating the identification and routing information. The data is transmitted through multiple computers via a network of relays run by like-minded volunteers - almost like how users installed SETI software to look for extraterrestrial beings. Tor isn't the only service that helps you hide in the shadows away from the prying eyes of the federal government, or any other person who would do it for malicious purposes. However, some say that it's better because it works at the Transmission Control Protocol stream level. Full post: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/08/what-is-tor-and-why-does-it-matter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheNextWeb+(The+Next+Web+All+Stories)

The House of Representatives go for the second round of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act as it passed legislation on Thursday. The newly granted powers are intended to stop computer security threats against a company's rights and property. But the definitions are broad and vague. The terms allow purposes such as guarding against "improper" information modification and ensuring "timely" access to information, functions that are not necessarily tied to attacks. Once handed over, the government is able to use this information for investigating crimes that are unrelated to the underlying security threat and, more broadly, for "national security" purposes, which is a poorly defined term that includes "threats to the United States, its people, property, or interests" and "any other matter bearing on United States national or homeland security." The bill's vague definitions like "cybersecurity purpose" and "cybersecurity system" also raise the frightening possibility of a company using aggressive countermeasures. If a company wants to combat a threat, it is empowered to use "cybersecurity systems" to identify and obtain "cyber threat information." But the bill does not define exactly how far a company can go, leaving it open to the possibility of abuse. The bill drew support from House Democrats, passing on a bipartisan vote of 288-127, although the White House repeated its veto threat on Tuesday if further civil liberties protections are not added. Some lawmakers and privacy activists worry that the legislation would allow the government to monitor citizens' private information and companies to misuse it. U.S. authorities have recently elevated the exposure to Internet hacks and theft of digital data to the list of top threats to national security and the economy. Though thousands of companies have long been losing data to hackers in China and elsewhere, the number of parties publicly admitting such loss has been

http://hassassociates-online.com/articles/2013/04/23/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill-as-privacy-concerns-linger/ The House of Representatives go for the second round of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act as it passed legislation on Thursday. The newly granted powers are intended to stop computer security threats against a company's rights and property. But the definitions are broad and vague. The terms allow purposes such as guarding against "improper" information modification and ensuring "timely" access to information, functions that are not necessarily tied to attacks. Once handed over, the government is able to use this information for investigating crimes that are unrelated to the underlying security threat and, more broadly, for "national security" purposes, which is a poorly defined term that includes "threats to the United States, its people, property, or interests" and "any other matter bearing on United States national or homeland security." The bill's vague definitions like "cybersecurity purpose" and "cybersecurity system" also raise the frightening possibility of a company using aggressive countermeasures. If a company wants to combat a threat, it is empowered to use "cybersecurity systems" to identify and obtain "cyber threat information." But the bill does not define exactly how far a company can go, leaving it open to the possibility of abuse. The bill drew support from House Democrats, passing on a bipartisan vote of 288-127, although the White House repeated its veto threat on Tuesday if further civil liberties protections are not added. Some lawmakers and privacy activists worry that the legislation would allow the government to monitor citizens' private information and companies to misuse it. U.S. authorities have recently elevated the exposure to Internet hacks and theft of digital data to the list of top threats to national security and the economy. Though thousands of companies have

http://www.wellsphere.com/brain-health-article/hundreds-of-south-african-facebook-profiles-have-been-cloned/1954857 Computer forensics expert Bennie Labuschagne said scammers used programs designed to "deep mine" online accounts to bypass security features."Cloning is very common and it is now like the 419 scams, only on social networks," he said. One of the South African Facebook victims, Dinesh Ramrathan, said yesterday: "A Facebook friend called me to find out why I had sent her a message asking for money online. I then discovered that my page had been duplicated. "My friends were caught off guard and accepted friend requests from the hacker, who then started sending requests for money." The impostor claimed that Ramrathan was in trouble and needed money urgently."I am lucky because all my Facebook friends know me personally outside of the social network so they knew that I was not in trouble," he said. Debby Bonnin's husband received a friend request from her even though they were already Facebook friends. One of sixmillion local users of Facebook, Bonnin said: "My major concern is identity theft and all the possible ramifications of that. On Facebook the prime issue is reputation. But the person behind the false profile could use your identity to access confidential information from your friends and then there could be security or financial problems that arise." Another Facebook user, Josh Delport, said his stored scores and tokens on game applications on the site had disappeared. University of KwaZulu-Natal associate professor of information systems Manoj Maharaj said that, though Facebook could not be hacked because of its hi-tech security features, the affected users might have put themselves at risk by clicking on links to external games, applications and shopping sites. "Users are clicking on these links without realising that their information is being passed on. If one of those sites is hacked, their information, such as credit card details, is easily a

The website Songsrpeople.com looks a lot like other amateur-video sites. It is wallpapered with clips featuring "the most insane amusement park ever" and "your girlfriend's six friends." The site draws tens of thousands of visitors a month, according to audience measurement firms. It also has ads for national brands, including Target Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and State Farm. But Web-security investigators at a firm called White Ops contend that most of the site's visitors aren't people. Rather, they are computer-generated visitors, or "bots," designed to fool advertisers into paying for the traffic, says White Ops, which has blacklisted the site-and thousands more like it-so that ads from clients such as Zipcar don't land there. An anonymous representative for Songsrpeople declined to discuss the site's traffic but in an email called the White Ops methodology into question. State Farm said it was looking into the matter while Target declined to comment and Amazon didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Authorities and Internet-security experts say tens of thousands of dubious websites are popping up across the Internet. Their phony Web traffic is often fueled by "botnets," zombie armies of hijacked PCs that are controlled from unknown locations around the world, according to Internet security experts. The sites take advantage of the simple truth that advertisers pay to be seen. This creates an incentive for fraudsters to erect sites with phony traffic, collecting payments-often through middlemen and sometimes directly from advertisers. "When you walk into this world, you walk with eyes wide open," said Brian Harrington, chief marketing officer at Zipcar, which ran a recent ad campaign, assisted by White Ops to filter out bogus traffic. "You know stuff is not real." At their most sophisticated, botnets can mimic the behavior of online consumers, clicking from one site to the next, pausing at ads, watching videos, and even putting items in shopp