It’s fun to imagine the spy games that must have been involved in Edward Snowden’s exposure of the NSA’s massively invasive surveillance techniques. But, as NBC reports, a lot of that information came the way you might snoop on your significant others’ email: He stole some poor sap’s password.
     |
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R) were on Meet the Press this morning with explosive allegations: Edward Snowden may have been working with Russian spy agencies before leaving the US with about 1.7 million documents that revealed NSA surveillance tactics. The only catch? They presented no real evidence to back up their claims.
| |
The NSA revelations keep on coming, and if you’re feeling desensitized to the whole thing it’s time to refocus and get your game face on for 2014. Because shit continues to get real.
| |
The mounting national debt? Yeah, you’re probably better off just ignoring why exactly it’s mounting. The Guardian is continuing the blow the lid off of the whole NSA / PRISM saga, today revealing new documents that detail how the NSA paid out “millions” of dollars to cover PRISM compliance costs for a multitude of monolithic tech outfits. As the story goes, the National Security Agency (hence, tax dollars from American taxpayers) coughed up millions “to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the PRISM surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency’s activities were unconstitutional.” The likes of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are expressly named, and while Google is still angling for permission to reveal more about its side of the story, other firms have conflicting tales.
For whatever it’s worth, a Yahoo spokesperson seemed a-okay with the whole ordeal, casually noting that this type of behavior is perfectly legal: “Federal law requires the US government to reimburse providers for costs incurred to respond to compulsory legal process imposed by the government. We have requested reimbursement consistent with this law.” Meanwhile, Facebook stated that it had “never received any compensation in connection with responding to a government data request.” Microsoft, as you might imagine, declined to comment, though we heard that Steve Ballmer could be seen in the distance throwing up a peace sign. At any rate, it’s fairly safe to assume that your worst nightmares are indeed a reality, and you may have a far more enjoyable weekend if you just accept the fact that The Man knows everything. Better, right?
Source: The Guardian
Wikileaks has stirred up its share of trouble in its day, but it might be up to something more. The site’s been posting links to a trio of encrypted files pretty insistently on Facebook, and one of them is a whopping 349GB. What’s in there?
| |
The New York Times Magazine has a quick Q&A with Edward Snowden, conducted through intermediary Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who’s been filming Snowden since earlier this year. It’s mostly straightforward, except for one potentially significant reveal.
| |
Silent Circle, an email provider which guarantees end-to-end secure email, has announced that it’s going the same way as Edward Snowden’s beloved Lavabit
| |
The unfortunate side effect of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s email provider Lavabit pulling the plug rather than complying with the feds
| |
It looks like Edward Snowden is going to have to find a new email service as the one he supposedly used — Lavabit — has abruptly closed its doors. The company’s owner, Ladar Levison, posted an open letter on the site today, saying, “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit.” Levison also claimed to be unable to speak to the specifics surrounding the situation, stating that a Congressionally approved gag order prevented him from doing so. While Lavabit’s situation seems pretty dire, it might not be curtains just yet. In his message, Levison stated that he would take his fight to reinstate Lavabit to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. To read the missive in full, head on over to the source link below.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Boing Boing
Source: Lavabit
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.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
