Tag: nsa

Oct142014 by editorNo Comments

Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks

Six months before the world knew the National Security Agency’s most prolific leaker of secrets as Edward Joseph Snowden, Laura Poitras knew him as Citizenfour. For months, Poitras communicated with an unknown “senior government employee” under that pseudonym via encrypted emails, as he prepared her to receive an unprecedented leak of classified documents that he would ask her to expose to the world. Poitras’ remarkable new film, Citizenfour, premiered Friday at the New York Film Festival, and opens in theaters on October 24. It is a haunting, historic document of Snowden’s motivations and personality, the sort of revelatory filmmaking that could only have been achieved by a director who was herself at the center of the story; Poitras lived out the NSA drama almost as completely as Snowde

Aug182014 by editorNo Comments

Tweetstorm: Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Worse Than the NSA

Cyber Security, Governance, Internet

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is not known to be a shrinking violet when it comes to saying what he thinks on Twitter, especially on a Sunday when he seems most fired up and ready to rumble. Reports Recode.net But today was a doozie, in which he claimed Google was — wait for it — worse than the NSA: NSA privacy invasion bad, but nothing compared to Google. — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 17, 2014 Murdoch has gone after the search giant many times before — including about the NSA. In April, he tweeted: “Google attack on NSA extreme nerve. Google has more data on all of us and uses it. No evidence of NSA doing this. Ethical company?” In 2013, Murdoch went after Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. And in 2012, he was all riled up about piracy: Piracy leader is Google who strea

May222014 by editorNo Comments

Snowden leak reveals NSA collects content of all phone calls in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines

Broadband, Cyber Security, Internet

The United States National Security Agency is reportedly collecting the contents of effectively every phone call dialed or received within the Bahamas, putting the conversations of countless residents and tourists into the hands of the NSA. Reports rt.com Journalists at The Intercept on Monday accused the secretive American spy agency of participating in this massive but previously undisclosed dragnet surveillance system after being supplied with classified documentation provided to them by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. “According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government,” Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwa

Feb262014 by editorNo Comments

Do the NSA revelations have anything to do with Internet governance?

Governance

Editors note: This blog post is based on a talk given at the New America Foundation December 5, 2013. Thanks to Tim Maurer and Kevin Bankston for hosting the talk The evolution of Internet governance has been characterized by a tension between the Internet’s organically evolved governance institutions and nation-states. The native Internet institutions, such as IETF, IANA/ICANN, the Internet Society, and the regional Internet address registries (RIRs) are transnational in scope and rooted in non-state actors. Governments on the other hand are seeking to reassert traditional forms of territorial authority over communications in the context of the internet. In this struggle, non-state actors had a first-mover advantage. The Internet succeeded in creating a globalized virtual space before sta

Feb192014 by editorNo Comments

Euronet: Internet security for Europe or NSA backlash

Governance, Internet

GENEVA, Switzerland, February 18, 2014 – With a series of well-timed revelations, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden single-handedly managed to change the way the American government is perceived across the world. By exposing that worldwide surveillance is real, something that was long suspected but never clearly proven, he has created a European backlash against America. Now German Chancellor Angela Merkel is throwing her support behind the creation of a European data network that would bypass US servers. In her Saturday podcast, Merkel underlined that there would be negotiations, “with European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn’t have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic.” Such a European network would supposedly be beyond the long

Jan202014 by editorNo Comments

NSA’s Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Data Will End Says Obama

Cyber Security, Governance, Internet

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama's plan to curtail the government's mass collection of American phone data shakes up U.S. spying practices amid a world-wide firestorm over revelations about the nation's surveillance programs. But Mr. Obama, promising a continued review, left large swaths of the surveillance programs unchanged, and many of his proposals for overhauling them still face congressional debate and approval. The president's plan, which drew mixed reactions from both sides of the surveillance debate after he announced them in a speech Friday, sets the stage for possible conflicts with intelligence officials and their allies in Congress. In one of the biggest changes, he said the government would stop storing huge amounts of telephone data in NSA computers, but he hasn't determine

Jan132014 by editorNo Comments

Experts Withdraw From RSA Internet Security Conference

Cyber Security

As reported By JACK GILLUM for Associated Press At least eight researchers or policy experts have withdrawn from an Internet security conference after the sponsor reportedly used flawed encryption technology deliberately in commercial software to allow the National Security Agency to spy more easily on computer users. RSA Security, owned by data storage giant EMC Corp., has disputed claims it intentionally introduced the flawed encryption algorithm, but otherwise has declined to discuss what a published report last month described as a $10 million government contract. The revelation supplemented documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showing that the NSA tried to weaken Internet encryption. The pullouts from the highly regarded RSA Conference represent early blowback

Dec162013 by editorNo Comments

Is the Powerful Intelligence World on the Verge of Making People Digitally Disappear?

Governance

George Orwell's dystopian "memory hole" isn't just the stuff of science fiction novels. December 6, 2013 | To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind. What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every National Security Agency (NSA) document Snowden released, every interview he gave, every documented trace of a national security state careening out of control could be made to disappear in real-time? What if the very posting of such revelations could be turned into a fruitless, record-l

Dec132013 by editorNo Comments

Is it the end of the www?

Governance

By Bhaskar Chakravorti, Special to CNN In a flat world, unflattering news moves quickly. The snowballing effects of the Snowden revelations about U.S. National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic threaten to break up the World Wide Web. Consider some of the news since the scandal broke: 100,000 Germans have signed up for a service called Email Made in Germany that guarantees that German email is stored in German servers; some Indian government employees have been advised to switch to typewriters (yes, you read that right) for sensitive documents; the Brazilians are reportedly planning a BRICS-only fiber-optic cable from Fortaleza in Brazil to Vladivostok in Russia, with stops along the way in Cape Town, Chennai and Shantou; the usually unflappable Swiss have begun to build a ...

Dec102013 by editorNo Comments

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo Propose Principles on Reforming Government Surveillance

Governance

A coalition of Technology companies released their plan for reforming how the government conducts surveillance. See below for the full press release. WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo joined together to propose principles for reforming government surveillance laws and practices. The companies also urged the President and the United States Congress to take the lead on reform with an open letter that reads: Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress, We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and awa