William Binney, a mathematician who worked for the NSA for 32 years as a cryptographer, goes on the record to detail that the FBI’s going through General Petraeus’s email is no particular exception: all electronic communications of all Americans are under constant surveillance and are permanently stored so security agencies can look through them whenever an urge strikes:
... (more)
As the WCIT (World Conference on International Telecommunications) gets under way in Dubai, the ITU is making its play to regulate the internet, potentially to aid authoritarian governments in censoring or limiting the internet, or to d... (more)
Can law enforcement enter your house and use a secret video camera to record the intimate details inside? On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unfortunately answered that question with "yes."
U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents suspected Ricky Wahchumwah of selling bald and gold eagle feathers and pelts in violation of federal law. Equipped with a small hidden video camera on h... (more)
RT talks to William Binney, whistleblower and former NSA crypto-mathematician who served in the agency for decades. Virtual privacy in US, Petraeus affair and whistleblowers' odds in fight against the authorities are among key topics of this exclusive interview.
The Northside Independent School District recently launched its controversial "Student Locator Project," which requires students to carry ID badges equipped with radio frequency tracker chips. If... (more)
Tim covered the story of ICE doing its annual censorship binge in seizing domain names without adversarial hearings (as we still believe is required under the law). However, there were a couple of additional points worthy of a followup. First off, if you remember, one of the key reasons why we were told SOPA was needed was that for all of ICE's previous domain takedowns it was... (more)
It's cyber-Monday, the day when many of us basically go to Amazon.com and get a bunch of gifts for friends and family because going to the store this time of year is as dangerous as a North Korean prison camp. I say "many of us" partially to account for anyone out there who doesn't celebrate Christmas and partially to account for the hardworking folks at America's Immigration and Cus... (more)
A court in Hamburg, Germany, has granted an injunction against a user of the anonymous and encrypted file-sharing network RetroShare . RetroShare users exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated. The court, however, has now ruled that RetroShare users who act as an exit node are liable for the encrypted traffic that’s sent by others.
Anonymous file-sharing is booming. Whether it’s BitT... (more)
An anti-piracy company has found itself in the middle of a huge controversy. CIAPC, the company that had The Pirate Bay blocked by ISPs in Finland, tracked an alleged file-sharer and demanded a cash settlement. However, the Internet account holder refused to pay which escalated things to an unprecedented level. In response, this week police raided the home of the 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her Winnie the Pooh laptop.
Very soon in the United States, letters will be ... (more)
You may recall that, earlier this year, we wrote about a very troubling ruling in the UK against the founder of SurfTheChannel, Anton Vickerman. STC was a linking site, no different than others that had been found perfectly legal in the UK. After the conviction, which resulted in Vickerman being put in jail for four years, some additiona... (more)
The National Security Agency has shot down a Freedom of Information Act request for details about an elusive presidential order that may allow the government to deploy the military within the United States for the supposed sake of cybersecurity.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports on Tuesday that their recent FOIA request for information about a top-secret memo signed last month by US President Barack Obama has been rejected [PDF]. Now attorneys for EP... (more)
Some things change, but others stay the same. While the types of threats facing Internet users worldwide have diversified over the past few years, from targeted malware to distributed denial of service attacks, one thing has remained constant: governments seeking to exert control over their populations still remain the biggest threat to the open Internet.
A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet.
The Internet empowers everyone — anyone can speak, create, learn, and share. It is controlled by no one — no single organization, individual, or government. It connects the world. Today, more than two billion people are online — about a third of the planet.
But not all governments support the free and open Internet.
There is a growing backlash on Internet freedom. Forty-two c... (more)
It's typical to preface a Techdirt article, for me at least, by backtracking to a bunch of articles on related subject matter. I'm not going to do that with another piece on the TSA. Not because there isn't enough material to choose from. Oh no, there's simply too much of it, so if you want to see insanity in its most naked form (this statement assumes you don't live next to Gary Busey), just click here and you won't be disappointed. That said, even those outraged by the pure idiocy o... (more)
Just when you thought it was impossible for surveillance to get any creepier, a company has announced it has created mannequins with cameras installed inside that can be used to spy on shoppers and record their conversations – and that they’ve already been rolled out at numerous fashion stores across the world.
The EyeSee mannequin, developed by Italian firm Almax, relies on technology used to identify criminals in airports that utilizes facial recognition software to... (more)
While I see nothing wrong with this service, I found this quote hilarious:
“While we want to maintain a customer-friendly returns policy, The Retail Equation system helps us minimize returns fraud; which is often tied to bigger organized crimes such as drug trafficking, and even terrorism,” said spokesman Stephen Holmes in an e-mail.
Show me one example of terrorism being financed by someone taking advantage of a store's return policy. What a complete joke, every two-bit hack now thinks they can cite "terrorism" as a justification for anything and everything. - Chris
