Hasta La Gadget!

See that guy? The one in the bubble? He’s probably up to no good. Thanks to President Obama, however, he’s going to have a much harder time duping innocent young ladies like the one also shown here. Per The Hill, the POTUS has just signed into law the Safe Web Act, which extends the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to “clamp down on Internet fraud and online scammers based abroad.” In simpler terms, it enables the entity to share data about “cross-border online fraud with foreign law enforcement authorities” through September of 2020. According to an unnamed official within the FTC, the existing edition of this act has allowed it to conduct over 100 investigations into cross-border fraud and scam, but it’s unclear how much crime was stopped and how many people were needlessly annoyed. We kid, we kid.

Filed under: Internet

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Via: The Next Web

Source: The Hill

Law enforcement representatives from both the state and local level have submitted a proposal to the US Congress that would require mobile carriers in the US to keep SMS logs for all users for at least two years, just in case they’re eventually needed for future criminal investigations. The law enforcement reps say that the lack of a current requirement “can hinder law enforcement investigations.”

Lawmakers are currently considering amending the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act in order to make it more relevant in today’s internet era, and the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association and other enforcement groups want to have a say during the amendment. They argue that text messaging conversations often contain evidence that can be vital to investigations, and current policies among US cellular providers are claimed to be inadequate.

Currently, most carriers store rudimentary data for text messages from the past few months, but the actual content of the text messages are usually only held onto for a few days. According to a Justice Department memo from last year, Verizon stores detailed SMS logs for between three and five days, while AT&T and T-Mobile keep no such records whatsoever. Carriers might have changed their policies since then, but regardless, standardizing a new logging practice for a specific amount of time would give law enforcement agencies confidence that the logs are there if they need them.

Obviously, this will no doubt spark privacy concerns, and the privacy advocates will be out in full force. While your text messages will most likely not be bothered with as long as you’re a good boy or girl, knowing that carriers and law enforcement have access to your detailed SMS logs from the past two years certainly isn’t assuring.

[via CNET]

Police tell Congress they want carriers keeping SMS logs for two years is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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