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Posts Tagged COMSEC
New Sofware From Apple and Google Better At Protecting Your Information From Government
From Reason.com:
Observant tech journalists have noticed something big in their latest privacy notes. Apple has changed its encryption so that the company itself cannot access the data on its users’ phones and iPads without the passcode. Thus, if police or the feds come to Apple with warrants to grab potentially useful private data off a device, they couldn’t comply even if they wanted to.
From ArsTechnica:
The Washington Post is reporting that Google will finally step up security efforts on Android and enable device encryption by default. The Post has quoted company spokeswoman Niki Christoff as saying “As part of our next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default out of the box, so you won’t even have to think about turning it on.â€
The move should bring Android up to parity with iOS. Apple recently announced enhanced encryption for iOS 8, which Apple says makes it impossible for the company to decrypt a device, even for law enforcement. While Android’s encryption was optional, it seems to work in a similar way, with Christoff saying “For over three years Android has offered encryption, and keys are not stored off of the device, so they cannot be shared with law enforcement.”
Google Removes Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental
Posted by Gary in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 6/Feb/2014 15:05
From: EFF
Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.
Android App Warns When You’re Being Watched
Posted by Gary in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 4/Feb/2014 14:52
From: MIT
Researchers find a way to give Android users prominent warnings when apps are tracking their location.
Repeated attacks hijack huge chunks of Internet traffic.
Posted by Gary in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 22/Nov/2013 14:44
From: Ars Technica
Man-in-the-middle attacks divert data on scale never before seen in the wild.
The hacks, which exploit implicit trust placed in the border gateway protocol used to exchange data between large service providers, affected “major financial institutions, governments, and network service providers” in the US, South Korea, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Libya, and Iran.
NSA has Laid the Foundation for a Police State
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 28/Sep/2013 16:06
From: MIT
… by eavesdropping on all Americans, they’re building the technical infrastructure for a police state.
We’re not there yet, but already we’ve learned that both the DEA and the IRS use NSA surveillance data in prosecutions and then lie about it in court. Power without accountability or oversight is dangerous to society at a very fundamental level.
Did the NSA Build a Backdoor into U.S. Crypto?
Posted by Gary in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 24/Sep/2013 13:37
From: Threat Level
… The talk was only nine slides long (.pdf). But those nine slides were potentially dynamite. They laid out a case showing that a new encryption standard, given a stamp of approval by the U.S. government, possessed a glaring weakness that made an algorithm in it susceptible to cracking. But the weakness they described wasn’t just an average vulnerability, it had the kind of properties one would want if one were intentionally inserting a backdoor to make the algorithm susceptible to cracking by design.
Microsoft and Google Sue U.S. Government
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 30/Aug/2013 15:59
From: IGN
Back in July, Microsoft and Google were among a number of tech giants who signed on to a coalition movement asking the U.S. government for more transparency when it comes to sharing the private online data of citizens. Today, the two companies have decided to move forward with litigation against the government, asking the courts to uphold their right to “speak more freely.”
Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance
Posted by Gary in Comms, Law, News, Threat Watch on 13/Jun/2013 14:46
The problem is that “good” people almost never see how fascist government actions will ever effect them. They just don’t think that way. They believe as long as they are law abiding, the government will never do them harm. But ask someone who lived with the Stazi (Ministry for State Security) in East Germany or the KGB (Committee for State Security) in the Soviet Union, watching their every move. They can tell you why you should be afraid, and there are plenty of them still around to talk to. If we don’t stop this now we will probably never again have the chance.
From: Wired
If the federal government can’t even count how many laws there are, what chance does an individual have of being certain that they are not acting in violation of one of them?
President Obama says he’s not Big Brother, NPR responds.
Posted by Gary in Comms, Law, News, Threat Watch on 11/Jun/2013 10:01
George Orwell
NPR is, in my opinion, the undisputed master of ultra-subtle propaganda. The publicly funded “News” organization is actually a chillingly effective tool of Collectivism and Big (Brother) Government. Effective because most of my right-leaning moderate friends can see no manipulation at all. After reading this piece on what NPR calls “Our Surveillance Society” you most likely will consider it balanced and objective. And yet I feel like a hound that can’t get the blaring tea kettle sound from two blocks away out of his head, while no one around him can hear it at all. Well at least they bothered to write something instead of ignoring it. That in and of itself, plus the exquisite subtlety of the propaganda, is an indication of just how onerous these unconstitutional actions are.
From: NPR
President Obama says he’s not Big Brother. The author who created the concept might disagree.
Addressing the controversy over widespread government surveillance of telephone records and Internet traffic Friday, Obama said, “In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance.”
Chinese Hackers Breached Google’s Surveillance Database
Posted by Gary in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 21/May/2013 14:35
From: Threat Level
Hackers Who Breached Google in 2010 Accessed Company’s Surveillance Database
…The database contained years’ worth of information on law enforcement surveillance surveillance orders issued by judges around the country. The hackers were hoping to discover if law enforcement agents were investigating undercover Chinese intelligence operatives who were working out of the U.S.
OPSEC For Journalists And Leakers
Wired’s Danger Room has some tips for journalists to protect their identity from subpoenas like the one involving the AP.
We now live in a world where public servants informing the public about government behavior or wrongdoing must practice the tradecraft of drug dealers and spies. Otherwise, these informants could get caught in the web of administrations that view George Orwell’s 1984 as an operations manual.
Is It Illegal to Unlock Your Phone?
From: EFF
Is It Illegal To Unlock a Phone? The Situation is Better – and Worse – Than You Think
Legal protection for people who unlock their mobile phones to use them on other networks expired last weekend. According to the claims of major U.S. wireless carriers, unlocking a phone bought after January 26 without your carrier’s permission violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCAâ€) whether the phone is under contract or not. In a way, this is not as bad as it sounds. In other ways, it’s even worse.
Joe Biden Accidentally Helped Us All E-Mail in Private
Posted by Gary in Comms, Law, Threat Watch on 17/Dec/2012 15:28
From: Danger Room
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Phil Zimmermann was a Colorado peacenik with a half-written program that he swore would one day let people exchange messages without Big Brother peering inside. The problem was, with a freelance job and two kids, Zimmermann could never quite find the time to finish the damn code — until Joe Biden came along.