The US government has set up a new tumblr of declassified documents as part of attempts to reassure the public on what data the NSA and other agencies collect on them. The site, IC On The Record, aims to “declassify and make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive NSA programs while being […]
The NSA’s PRISM program unlawfully gathered “tens of thousands” of emails and other communications in a surveillance sweep described as “fundamentally different” to what courts had approved, according to a newly-declassified FISA court opinion. The 2011 ruling by John D. Bates, chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court responsible for green-lighting monitoring, slammed the […]
We can’t say as though we’re particularly surprised to see such numbers, but, well, at least they’re finally coming to light. According to The Washington Post, newly declassified court documents highlight how the NSA collected up to 56,000 e-mails per year, over a three year period. The docs detail why the collection of such “wholly domestic” information was ruled unconstitutional by a judge in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, though the NSA stated that the surveillance was unintentional, adding that it reported said information to the court. As part of the ruling, the intelligence agency was required to investigate limits to its data collection — the NSA claims to have since addressed the problem. The newly available information was made public thanks to a recently field EFF lawsuit.
Update: Want to crawl through some of that information? The White House has begun posting key docs to Tumblr, of all places.
Filed under: Internet
Source: EFF, The Washington Post
When Edward Snowden leaked a number of top secret documents detailing National Security Agency’s spying programs, a lot of questions were raised regarding the alleged participation of some of U.S.A’s top software and internet companies. Microsoft was named in those documents as one of the participants of NSA’s PRISM program. A German publication called Zeit Online claims to have obtained leaked documents that reveal IT experts within the German government believe that Windows 8 is a “security risk.”
According to the publication, the experts contend that Windows 8 contains a backdoor which cannot be closed. They’re concerned about how Windows 8 works with Trusted Platform Modules. It is believed that the backdoor might allow Microsoft and even the NSA to remotely control any computer running Windows 8. From 2015, every computer will come with Windows 8.x, thus leaving simply no way for a user to tell what Microsoft might be doing to their system via remote updates. The experts reportedly conclude that due to the “loss of control over the capabilities of information technology” the security principles of confidentiality and integrity are no longer achievable. While Windows 8 is termed “unusable” due to the alleged backdoor, one document is cited as saying that Windows 7 can be securely used until 2020, after which they will have to find other solutions.
German Government IT Experts Reportedly Consider Windows 8 A ‘Security Risk’ original content from Ubergizmo. 
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In a not-so-startling revelation, the declassification of three secret court opinions on Wednesday show that the NSA hasn’t just been collecting communications related to terrorism investigations. It’s been collecting all kinds of stuff from unsuspecting Americans.
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Back in June after the first reports based on Edward Snowden’s leaks were published, President Obama boldly defended the NSA spying programs. He even called them "transparent." But boy oh boy have the folks over at the NSA let him down on that count.
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The WSJ is reporting that the NSA can actually reach and spy on more of the Internet than they’ve publicly said. In fact, it looks like the NSA can reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic. And yes, the NSA can read your e-mails too.
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The question of how much contact the NSA has with internet traffic throughout the US is being raised again, this time by the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday The Atlantic took issue with the security agency’s mathematics and 1.6 percent claim, while the WSJ report looks more closely at its reach into telecommunications companies. The mishmash of codenamed programs are said to cover up to 75 percent of US internet traffic, although the amount actually stored and accessed is much smaller. The main difference between the calculations may be due to the difference between what ISPs — handing over data under FISA orders — carry, and what the NSA specifically requests. Its capabilities mean it can pull a lot more than just metadata, with access to the actual content of what’s sent back and forth becoming even more troubling as privacy violations exposed by its own audits come to light.
There’s an FAQ-style breakdown of what’s new and notable from the usual “current and former” officials to get those interested up to speed quickly — keep your tinfoil hats and end-to-end encrypted communications systems close by.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Wall Street Journal (1), (2)
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
In an effort to end reporting on the NSA through documents delivered to the Guardian newspaper earlier this year, government officials have (according to the Guardian) destroyed a collection of hard drives in the publications London basement. This event was the apex of a series of meetings that’d taken place between Alan Rusbriger (of the […]
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