Robocops soon to patrol the streets

The local neighborhood watch may be beefing up its robotic arsenal if a new technology startup gets its way anytime soon.

Google Chrome Can Listen To Your Conversations

A whistleblower who privately informed Google four months ago that their Chrome browser had the ability to record conversations without the user’s knowledge has gone public after the tech giant failed to fix the issue.

2 million Netherlands passwords for Facebook, Twitter and Google posted online

Over 2 million passwords for popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google and Yahoo accounts have been stolen and posted online, with Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki also featuring on the hitlist.

Hacked Server location: Netherlands.
Spider Labs said  97 percent of the total appeared to come from computers in the Netherlands.

Internet security firm Trustwave exposed the extensive data hoard, saying in its blog that the responsible botnet – dubbed Pony – had harvested information from thousands of vulnerable computers on a global scale. The information included login credentials, email addresses and passwords.

Facebook Wants to Listen to Your Phone Calls

App requires users agree to be monitored by microphone at any time without their permission

Cellphone users who attempt to install the Facebook Messenger app are asked to agree to terms of service that allow the social networking giant to use the microphone on their device to record audio at any time without their permission.

As the screenshot below illustrates (click for enlargement), users are made to accept an agreement that allows Facebook to “record audio with the microphone….at any time without your confirmation.”

EU Set to Monitor “Intolerant” Citizens

A frightening proposal currently being considered by the European Parliament would direct governments to monitor citizens deemed “intolerant” and could even lead to a ban on all criticism of Islam and feminism.

The European Framework National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance (PDF), which was drafted by the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), an NGO based in Paris, was presented to the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee last month and is thought to be on the verge of implementation.

According to the Gatestone Institute, the Statute represents an “unparalleled threat to free speech” and would have the impact of “effectively shutting down the right to free speech in Europe” by banning “all critical scrutiny of Islam and Islamic Sharia law, a key objective of Muslim activist groups for more than two decades.”

NSA spied on phones of 35 world leaders

The National Security Agency eavesdropped on hundreds of phone numbers belonging to dozens of world leaders, newly leaked documents supplied by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden reveal.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper wrote Thursday that a classified memo provided to them by Snowden suggests that the NSA encouraged officials within the United States government and intelligence community to share among their colleagues contact information pertaining to international heads of state.

According to the Guardian, the memo made reference to an unnamed US official who had reportedly supplied the NSA with over 200 numbers, including 35 belonging to world leaders.

Warning: Enrolling in Obamacare allows government to link your IP address with your name, social security number, bank accounts and web surfing habits

We have already established that Healthcare.gov is not a functioning database application that allows people to shop for competing health plans. It is actually a government-run Trojan Horse that suckers people into creating accounts where they hand over:

• Name and address
• Email address and password
• Social security number
• Private bank account details
• Employer details and other information

During the enrollment process, your computer also hands over your IP address which is then tied to your social security number.

Anonymous claims link between iPhone 5S TouchID and US gov biometric database

Hacktivist group Anonymous has released a video and accompanying evidence which claims that Apple's TouchID technology has strong links to the NSA and FBI, as well as a massive biometric database the US government is building.

The group alleges that it has discovered a "corrupt alliance of Department of Defense Contractors, NSA and CIA connected venture capital" which led to the development of the technology, and Apple's subsequent purchase of it.

The presented findings are based on investigations by jailed and gagged journalist Barrett Brown, the video says, and the group has provided links to accompanying evidence on Pastebin.

New Gun Lets Police Shoot And Capture Your DNA

A frightening new weapons technology will let police and others tag people and identify them through DNA. 

The High Velocity DNA Tagging System consists of special guns that will allow police to tag and trace others.

The system works like this: A shooter fires a pellet into a person; the pellet contains a special synthetic DNA that enters the blood stream; police or anybody else can later test the person to see if it is the correct individual.

Big brother's dream come true: iPhone users are "zombies" who pay for their own surveillance

The latest series of Apple’s iPhone will not only continue to cultivate numerous apps that track your location through GPS and transmit data directly back to corporations and government, but contain a fingerprint sensor that stores your fingerprint in order to purchase apps and unlock the phone for use.


And that’s really just the beginning. As millions will most likely continue through the Apple food chain and purchase this phone, the NSA and bloated federal government at large will be beyond ecstatic. Because after all, it’s a real dream come true for the Big Daddy government spy state.

UK ordered Guardian to destroy hard drives in effort to stop Snowden revelations

UK authorities reportedly raided the Guardian’s office in London to destroy hard drives in an effort to stop future publications of leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed in a Monday article posted on the British newspaper's website that intelligence officials from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) told him that he would either have to hand over all the classified documents or have the newspaper’s hard drives destroyed.

After more talks, two "security experts" from GCHQ - the British version of the National Security Agency - visited the Guardian’s London offices.

Rusbridger wrote that the government officials then watched as computers, which contained classified information passed on by Snowden, were physically destroyed in one of the newspaper building’s basements.

"We can call off the black helicopters," Rusbridger said one of the officials joked.

Another source familiar with the event confirmed to Reuters that Guardian employees destroyed the computers as UK officials observed.

During negotiations with the government, Rusbridger said that the newspaper could not fulfill its journalistic duty if it satisfied the authorities’ requests.

But GCHQ reportedly responded by telling the Guardian that it had already sparked the debate, which was enough. read more


Related:
UK detains Greenwald’s partner under Terrorism Act, confiscates electronics
WikiLeaks posts 400 gigabytes of encrypted ‘insurance’ data online
You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On with Government Spying
Global security threat analyst says Global Governments are no longer in control


   

Huge Global Coalition Stands Against Unchecked Surveillance

100+ Organizations Sign Thirteen Principles to Protect Human Rights

More than 100 organizations from across the globe – including Privacy International, Access, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – are taking a stand against unchecked communications surveillance, calling for the governments around the world to follow international human rights law and curtail pervasive spying.

The coalition of groups have all signed the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communication Surveillance – 13 basic principles that spell out how existing human rights law applies to modern digital surveillance. Written in response to the increasing number of government surveillance standards that focus on law enforcement and "national security" priorities instead of citizens' rights, the principles include advice on how surveillance laws should respect the law, due process, and include public oversight and transparency.

Current debates over government surveillance are often limited by outmoded definitions of content versus metadata, or stored data versus data in transit. The principles released today concentrate on the core issue: how human rights protect all information that reveals private information about an individual's communications.

"It's time to restore human rights to their place at the very heart of the surveillance debate," said EFF International Director Danny O'Brien. "Widespread government spying on communications interferes with citizens' ability to enjoy a private life, and to freely express themselves – basic rights we all have.

But the mass metadata collected in the U.S. surveillance program, for example, makes it extraordinarily easy for the government to track what groups we associate with and why we might contact them. These principles announced today represent a global consensus that modern surveillance has gone too far and must be restrained."

The organizations signing the principles come from more than 40 different countries. The principles will be used to advocate for a change in how present laws are interpreted, and new laws are crafted. read more

Wi-Fi Trashcans Now Silently Tracking Your Smartphone Data

In an astounding testament to the depth of our surveillance society, a new line of ‘spy trashcans’ have been rolled out that further the international agenda to track and collect all of your personal data at every turn.

In the past we’ve seen politicians revealing that various electronics like your television and computer can spy on you at any time using special built-in hardware, but now even the most basic items are being turned into tools of the surveillance state. In fact, they don’t even have to be electronic in the first place.

And such is the case with the new ‘spy trashcans’, rolling out just recently into the streets of London for beta testing.

Utilizing Wi-Fi technology within the infrastructure of the now tech-equipped trashcans, new ‘Renew Pods’ spy trashcans have been placed throughout the financial district of London. The trash cans actually go ahead and utilize their internet connectivity to collect information from your smartphones without your permission (or any form of warning).

While the true data the spy cans are collecting may be completely withheld thanks to various relationships with spy agencies like GCHQ and the NSA, the ‘Renew’ company behind the spy cans says that the Renew Pods track and collect a medley of information.

This includes information that is actually, under law, considered personal data that requires permission to collect. Specifically, it includes your phone’s unique Media Access Control (MAC) address, which these Renew Pods collect without even the slightest warning. But that’s along with collecting other characteristics that are used to sell to advertisers in order to better ‘target’ you with advertising in the area.

From your phone’s unique identification address to its manufacturer, model, and even speed, these spy cans know more about your phone than you do - read more

Google update turns your phone into a spytool & Chrome has a Major Security flaw

According to TechNewsDaily, last week Google implemented a new update to its Chrome browser. 

The update has a new feature called WebRTC (real time communication). This new standardized feature allows for websites and applications to use your system’s camera and microphone.

If you think your privacy is safe with Google- think again. According to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is co-chairman of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, “The new Google privacy policy is: You have no privacy.” Combine this with Google recently handing over more than 11,000 individuals’ personal information to the government, and you can probably see how this new standard feature could become a go to tool for those seeking to see and hear you without you knowing.

Previous to the new update, apps and websites had to use a browser plug-in for audio and visual correspondence with a user. A user could easily disable, or choose not to install one of these plug-ins if they so happen to be concerned. However, users who try and disable the feature on Chrome will not be allowed to do so.  Furthermore, you cannot refuse the automatic update either, unless you have the know-how to turn off automatic updates on chrome. Chrome does require websites and apps to “ask for permission” to use the feature. However, anyone with even limited computer technology can bypass this in moments. read more

Google's Chrome browser has an massive flaw that gives users easy access to see "saved" passwords on the web.

Here's how it works. If you use Chrome, go to chrome://settings/passwords
You see this:

Hover over one of the passwords:

Hit "show," and ... WHOA: Your passwords are exposed:

This only happens on passwords that you have told Chrome to save. If you say "deny" when given a chance to save passwords, then nobody can see them.

It also only happens if you're logged in to Chrome through a Google account, but Google encourages you to log into Chrome, and the full advantages of Chrome come from being logged in.

This was originally discovered by Elliott Kember, read more

Military Tests Data Mining of Social Media for Special Ops

The U.S. military has been investigating the use of sophisticated data mining tools to probe social media and other open sources in order to support military operations against money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorism and other threats.  

But the window for doing so may be closing as the social media landscape changes, according to an internal assessment.

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) National Capital Region (NCR) conducted a series of experiments over the past year under the rubric “QUANTUM LEAP” that was intended to test “non-traditional” tools and techniques to advance the SOCOM mission.

An after-action report on the first experiment said it “was successful in identifying strategies and techniques for exploiting open sources of information, particularly social media, in support of a counter threat finance mission.”  Counter threat finance refers to efforts to disrupt an adversary’s finances.  A copy of the SOCOM NCR report was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Project QUANTUM LEAP: After Action Report,” 12 September 2012.

“Major lessons learned were the pronounced utility of social media in exploiting human networks, including networks in which individual members actively seek to limit their exposure to the internet and social media…,” the report said.

The QUANTUM LEAP project, which did not utilize classified intelligence, relied heavily on participation by private sector firms identified in the report, who demonstrated tools they had developed “to enhance the ability to discover relationships, human networks, and geospatial features” from open source data.

A tool called Social Bubble permitted the search of Twitter-related content “to explore human networks associated with the [counter threat finance] scenario and enabled identification of various entities… associated with the moneylaundering network.”  A tool called Recon was used to reconstruct source documents from a raw data stream.  Another tool served to “collect large quantities of data from the ‘deep web’, or sources which are accessible via the internet but not necessarily indexed or linked via a world wide web page.”  And another called Semantica “is capable of ingesting structured and semi-structured data and displaying it in a ‘triplet’ format, e.g. two entities and a relationship, such as [A is owned by B].”

“More than 200 additional open-source tools and sources were identified relevant to counter threat finance,” the SOCOM report said.

The report said that as valuable as the opportunity created by new techniques for data mining of open sources appears to be, it may prove to be transient. read more

Governments bombard Twitter with data requests

Twitter is falling under increased governmental pressure to provide private user data. 

Information requests from the US topped the list, with 902 – 78 percent of requests – being made over the past half year, up 40 percent from the previous six months.

The social media platform’s semi-annual transparency report revealed that in total, 1,157 bids were made for user data, meaning requests are up by 40 percent, according to Twitter’s semi-annual transparency report published on Wednesday.

Twenty-six different governments worldwide have demanded the provision of information, meaning there has been an increase in country numbers too of around 15 percent from between July to December 2012.

The number of US requests for data soared above the others: Second on the list was Japan, who attempted to acquire the data of some 87 users, totaling a mere eight percent of total government data requests received.

The most common way in which governmental bodies ask for access to email or IP addresses of users is through court-issued subpoenas, Twitter said.

The company also noted a sharp rise in attempts to censor the San-Francisco based social media platform.

“Over the last six months, we have gone from withholding content in two countries to withholding content (ranging from hate speech to defamation) in seven countries,” said Twitter legal policy manager Jeremy Kessel.

Brazil was the home of the most censored twitter accounts, having requested that 39 defamatory tweets be removed from the social media site on nine separate occasions. France – a country notorious for ordering Twitter to reveal the identities of anti-Semitic Tweeters  – came second on the list, requesting that 12 tweets be removed from its servers. Twitter complied with the anti-Semitic tweet requests in June.

“Over the last six months, we have gone from withholding content in two countries to withholding content (ranging from hate speech to defamation) in seven countries,” said Twitter.

The transparency report is the first released since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding US governmental surveillance practices.

Twitter stated that at the present moment it was unable to distinguish between the types of requests and separate them into national security issues. However, it expressed how that it would in the future be able to differentiate between the two.

“An important conversation has begun about the extent to which companies should be allowed to publish information regarding national security requests….we believe it’s important,” said Twitter in a blog post on Wednesday.

Unlike major tech companies Google, Facebook and Microsoft, Twitter was not listed as a participant in the PRISM program – as the bulk of the platform’s activity is conducted in the public sphere.

 However, the company would still have to comply if the FISA court asked for information.

The mountainous region which lies on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan has long been infamous as an insurgent hotspot. Foreign air power is deemed necessary to cover the area as Afghan security forces have insufficient air power.


RT

NSA's XKeyscore gives one-click real-time access to almost any internet activity

New revelations about NSA surveillance systems show that it was enough to fill in a short ‘justification’ form before gaining access to any of billions of emails, online chats, or site visit histories through a vast aggregation program called XKeyscore.

The structure of XKeyscore, leaked by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, is sourced from a classified internal presentation from 2008 and a more recent Unofficial User Guide, presumably obtained by Edward Snowden when he was a contractor for the National Security Agency in the past year.

It shows that XKeyscore – then located on 750 servers around 150 sites worldwide – is a vast collection and storage program that served as the entry point for most information that was collected by the NSA. The Guardian claims that in one 30-day period in 2012 the program acquired 41 billion records.

The information is not just metadata – depersonalized analytical usage statistics that allow spies to spot patterns – but includes almost all types of personal information. Using any piece of personal data on a subject – an email address, or the IP address of a computer – an agent could look up all online user activities, such as Google map searches, website visits, documents sent through the internet or online conversations. The service operates both, in real time, and using a database of recently stored information.

All that appears to have been necessary to log into the system is to fill in a compulsory line on a form that gave a reason for why a certain person needed to be investigated. The form was not automatically scanned by the system or a supervisor, and did not require a US legal warrant, as long as the person whose name was typed in was a foreigner (even if his interactions were with a US citizen).

The slides appear to vindicate security specialist Edward Snowden’s claims made during the original video he recorded in Hong Kong last month.

"I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email," he alleged then. read more

Car key immobiliser hack revelations blocked by UK court

A High Court judge has blocked three security researchers from publishing details of how to crack a car immobilisation system.

German car maker Volkswagen and French defence group Thales obtained the interim ruling after arguing that the information could be used by criminals.

The technology is used by several car manufacturers.

The academics had planned to present the information at a conference in August.

The three researchers are Flavio Garcia, a computer science lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and Baris Ege and Roel Verdult, security researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

"The University of Birmingham is disappointed with the judgement which did not uphold the defence of academic freedom and public interest, but respects the decision," said a spokeswoman.

"It has decided to defer publication of the academic paper in any form while additional technical and legal advice is obtained given the continuing litigation. The university is therefore unable to comment further at this stage."

Radboud University Nijmegen said it found the ban "incomprehensible".

"The publication in no way describes how to easily steal a car, as additional and different information is needed for this to be possible," said a spokeswoman.

"The researchers informed the chipmaker nine months before the intended publication - November 2012 - so that measures could be taken. The Dutch government considers six months to be a reasonable notification period for responsible disclosure. The researchers have insisted from the start that the chipmaker inform its own clients."

Neither VW nor Thales was able to provide comment.

The ruling was issued on 25 June, but the case only gained public attention following an article in the Guardian.
read more

UK Internet Porn Censor to Also Block Conspiracy Theories

The totalitarian tip-toe is tap dancing to tyranny with the proposed Internet censorship bill in the United Kingdom. 

In the name of keeping children safe from porn, the UK law will impose Internet filters on far more than just porn.

According to Wired :

As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on "violent material", "extremist related content", "anorexia and eating disorder websites" and "suicide related websites", "alcohol" and "smoking". But the list doesn't stop there. It even extends to blocking "web forums" and "esoteric material", whatever that is. "Web blocking circumvention tools" is also included, of course.

The definition of "esoteric" makes clear that censorship of broad topics is the goal of this so-called ISP filter:
es·o·ter·ic [es-uh-ter-ik] adjective
1. understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest;
2. belonging to the select few.
3. private; secret; confidential.

Translation: anything outside the acceptable mainstream narrative will be filtered. In short, the free flow of information is under assault with this law.

The organization Open Rights Group refers to this totalitarian tip-toe as "sleepwalking into censorship":
What's clear here is that David Cameron wants people to sleepwalk into censorship. We know that people stick with defaults: this is part of the idea behind 'nudge theory' and 'choice architecture' that is popular with Cameron.

The implication is that filtering is good, or at least harmless, for anyone, whether adult or child. Of course, this is not true; there's not just the question of false positives for web users, but the affect on a network economy of excluding a proportion of a legitimate website's audience.

read more

Code-breaker Karsten Nohl: ‘Phone users can’t do much against SIM hackers’

Renowned German code-breaker Karsten Nohl, who uncovered a design flaw in around 750 million SIM cards around the world leaving them vulnerable to hack attacks, told RT that phone users are helpless against hackers.

“SIM cards were the last widely-used [piece of] technology left that no one had broken yet,” said Nohl, who made headlines on Sunday saying that his team found a flaw that would allow hackers to remotely access personal data and authorize illegal transactions within minutes.

The 31-year-old 'ethical hacker' breaks into secure systems, exploiting their vulnerabilities, and then presents his findings to companies, hoping they fix any issues before they are identified by criminals.

The UN’s International Telecommunications Union called the evidence “significant” and is to send an alert to all mobile phone operators warning of what was revealed.

The bug affects the SIM card, the plastic circuit board that contains key phone user data, which is considered to be the most-secure part of the phone, and has not been hacked in a similar fashion in a decade. By finding out the unique encryption key of each SIM card with just one hidden text message, Nohl is able to get complete remote control of an individual’s phone.

Nohl and the programming flaw can be exploited both for financial fraud and surveillance.

'Ethical hacker' Karsten Nohl

“The worst case scenario that I could foresee is criminals acquiring enough information to hack a few million cards in the country,” Nohl added. “The main short term threat after criminals finally acquire this attack method is fraud. They will abuse the cards to send premium SMS, for instance. They can also steal banking tokens from them in countries where that is used.”

The other thing to worry about Nohl warns is surveillance, “because the SIM cards do encrypt all the voice communications originating from a phone as well as data communication. All of this can be intercepted and decoded by a well-equipped surveillance team.”

The phone users are left in the dark in all of this as there is no way to tell when a SIM card is being hacked. “The best bet currently is to wait for the network to implement countermeasures before the abuse starts and should abuse happen in your network, ask for a new SIM card,” explains Nohl.

Nohl said his team had been unsuccessfully attempting to breach SIM cards since 2011, using over-the-air-programming (OTA) – unseen text messages that are sent by the mobile phone operator to change settings on the phone of a user within their network.

In the end, the flaw was found by accident after Nohl noticed that when he attempted to send certain incorrect OTA commands, he would receive an error message that also contained the unique encryption code belonging to that phone – its virtual key. The code was easily decrypted – Nohl says the process takes him one minute. With the phone now at his disposal, he could command it to do anything from his own computer, without the user ever suspecting anything was amiss.

The bug was not found in every SIM card tested and Nohl estimates that it is present in about a quarter of SIM cards using Data Encryption Standard (DES), putting about 750 million users worldwide at risk.

While leading companies have released statements acknowledging the flaw, and claiming they are working to eradicate it, authorities have urged calm among ordinary users, noting that no criminal damage appears to have been done so far.


RT