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Secret servers and a privileged position on the internet’s backbone used to identify users and attack target computers, by Bruce Schneier, October 4, 2013. “The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the National Security Agency. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA‘s application vulnerabilities branch, which is part of …
“In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public’s interest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of …
“Freedom on the Net 2013 is the fourth report in a series of comprehensive studies of internet freedom around the globe and covers developments in 60 countries that occurred between May 2012 and April 2013. Over 60 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project by researching laws and practices …
The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators: an audit of international government surveillance systems – Dan Werb; Thomas Kerr; Bohdan Nosyk2; Steffanie Strathdee; Julio Montaner; Evan Wood. BMJ Open 2013;3:e003077 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-003077 “Objectives: Illegal drug use continues to be a major threat to community health and safety. We used international drug surveillance databases to assess the relationship between multiple long-term estimates of illegal drug price …
“Contrary to the assumption that the death penalty is widely used in the U.S., only a few jurisdictions employ capital punishment extensively, according to a new report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Only two percent of the counties in the U.S. have been responsible for the majority of cases leading to …
One technique developed by the agency targeted the Firefox web browser used with Tor, giving the agency full control over targets’ computers by James Ball, Bruce Schneier and Glenn Greenwald “The National Security Agency has made repeated attempts to develop attacks against people using Tor, a popular tool designed to protect online anonymity, despite the …
LIBE Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. 07-10-2013: LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens – Sixth Hearing – Programme “Session I focuses on the impact of mass surveillance programmes on the rights of EU citizens to data protection, either these programmes are implemented by third countries or by EU Member States. …
“Leonard Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post, is the Weil family professor of journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This article is based on his report The Obama Administration and the Press, forthcoming Thursday from the Committee to Protect Journalists. “With the passage of the Patriot …
Selling Secrets of Phone Users to Advertisers – by Claire Cain Miller and Somini Sengupta, October 5, 2013 “Now, smartphones know everything — where people go, what they search for, what they buy, what they do for fun and when they go to bed. That is why advertisers, and tech companies like Google and Facebook, …
EFF – “A group of prominent technologists submitted a letter today to the NSA Review Group, a body charged with conducting a review of NSA activities that does not currently have a technologist as a member. The letter urges the Review Group to seek assistance from independent technologists in order to conduct a thorough review, …
“EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has produced new documents about “Next Generation Identification” and the FBI’s plans for facial recognition. According to the document obtained by EPIC, “NGI shall return an incorrect candidate a maximum of 20% of the time.” That number is much greater than expected. Earlier this year, EPIC received documents from …
[October 1, 2013] “release of the 2013 Secrecy Report, the 9th annual review and analysis of indicators of secrecy in the federal government by OpenTheGovernment.org, comes amid shocking revelations that cast doubt on the accuracy and the meaningfulness of the government’s statistics about surveillance. As is highlighted in the introduction to this report and in …
