Tag Archives: NSA

The U.S. Department of Justice has confirmed that a government contractor was arrested in August and charged with removing and retaining classified materials without permission. Other sources have confirmed it was an NSA contractor who was detained, though it isn't clear at this time what information he is alleged to …

If you're a Yahoo email user, you should be aware that in 2015 the web giant built a specialised piece of software to scan all incoming emails to all Yahoo mail accounts, searching for certain phrases and statements related to U.S. intelligence. Three former employees have claimed to have seen the …

Yesterday the news hit that an organisation appeared to have hacked the command and control server for an NSA-tied hacking group, purportedly known as Equation Group. Looking at the information and tools released, Edward Snowden thinks this was a warning from a foreign nation. Equation Group is an NSA-linked hacking …

Hackers are some of the most security conscious in the world. When you're trying to break safeguards all day, you have a good knowledge of how to protect yourself. So you'd assume a group of white hats tied to the NSA would be doubly safe, but not from everyone. A …

American whistle blower and Russian resident Edward Snowden, doesn't believe the CIA when it claims it “accidentally,” destroyed a 6,700 page torture report, claiming that it never does anything like that without proper consideration. “When the CIA destroys something, it's never a mistake,” he said. The CIA was recently quoted in the …

One of the big arguments for more government surveillance, is that they're only ever after metadata. While that is rarely true, in the cases that it is, it's cited as being just a record of your calls, not the content of them. But it turns out that knowing who was …

In the latest instance of Apple looking to distance itself from government interference, it has announced that it is now designing its own servers in-house, because it's concerned that someone is modifying its servers after they've been shipped from the manufacturer. In some cases, it believes hardware was added to …

As much as Edward Snowden might have drawn the most headlines and public attention in recent years, he's far from the only person to ever leave the NSA and blow the whistle on some of its more unscrupulous actions. Bill Binney is another such individual, having left the intelligence agency …

Police in the UK are lobbying the government to give them the powers to look at what they describe as the “where, when and what,” of online activities, essentially letting them view the browsing history of every single internet user in the UK, without being issued a warrant. The reasoning they …

Despite the United States continued stance that Edward Snowden needs to come home from Russia and face the music of his document stealing actions, the European Parliament has further solidified his position as a whistleblower by voting – by a slim margin – for EU nations to pardon him for …

As much as Edward Snowden has been a popular public figure over the past couple of years after he revealed the depths of intelligence agency spying in America and around the world, he's had to live in relative hiding within Russia since. While he's made the odd video appearance at …

Microsoft and the US Department of Justice are still butting heads over access to data stored on the company's Ireland based servers. The US has been trying to force Microsoft in to giving it access to information in the firm's datacentre in Ireland for some time now and Microsoft is …

Since the Edward Snowden revelations about the NSA, GCHQ and international data gathering and sharing came out in 2013, the world has been trying to figure out the right balance between privacy and security. To that end, the European Commission has been in talks with U.S. representatives to renegotiate “safe …

Although many people believe that intelligence agencies are a major part of a modern society's national defence, most of the big name ones have been through the ringer in recent years for unlawful spying on their own citizens and allies. However it turns out the NSA has been doing that for …

When we first learned about the NSA's XKEYSCORE software back in the 2013 Edward Snowden revelations, it was clear that it was (and is) a pretty versatile piece of software, able to parse huge swatches of recorded information in order to store the most juicy bits of data on every …

In the aftermath of revelations that the USA spent half a decade spying on France's presidents and members of its cabinet, discovering phone call meta data and occasionally content, many French politicians have made public statements condemning the actions. Although many suspect little will happen behind the scenes due to the …

Apparently not content with snooping on the smartphone of the German chancellor Angela Merkel, the NSA also spent over half a decade spying on the last three French presidents, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande between 2006 and 2012, according to some newly leaked Wikileaks documents. Titled, “Espionnage Élysée”, they show …

In the name of thwarting terrorism, British and US intelligence agencies have taken part in many questionable practices over the past few years. Often those actions are considered legally dubious by various international authorities, but that hasn't stopped them pushing full speed ahead. In a new round of document reveals …

One of the biggest back and forth struggles of the Kim Dotcom legal saga, was that the US wanted access to his decryption keys so that it could look into the data held on his personal systems, which were seized as part of the raid on his New Zealand mansion …

Whoever said talking too much was a bad thing? Thanks to unending debates, filibusters and a growing unease at the US government's willingness to spy on its own citizens, the clause within the Patriot Act that allowed the NSA to record every phone call made by a member of the …

Despite British MP's quickly jumping on the idea of increasing the amount of spying that agencies like GCHQ perform against the British public, across the pond things don't look quite so rosy for the intelligence agencies. The NSA's record of spying on US citizens has been deemed illegal by a …

You probably know by now that the biggest tech companies in the US are currently battling it out with the NSA over data encryption and what the US government should be allowed to access. Since back door access to customer data is clearly out of the question following the Snowden …

China has had a firm grasp on its country's internet for decades, with researchers in the 90's terming its mix of legislation and technological censorship, “The Great Firewall.” On a more aggressive front, it's maintained divisions of the military exclusively for hacking for years now but it may have recently given birth to …

Since the Edward Snowden revelations of 2013, many organisations have been held under the spotlight for their collusion with the NSA and other international intelligence agencies, most notably Google and Microsoft. Facebook was involved too though, which is why a group of over 25,000 Austrians have launched a class action …

It's no secret at this point that every member of the Five Eyes spying network (essentially every English speaking nation) has been snooping on not only their citizens, but everyone else's over the past few years, under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts. Despite this though, new revelations every few months …

The Open Rights Group is a big proponent of, above all else, open rights. That means it champions the rights of individuals online, including freedoms of expression, freedoms of speech, information and privacy. With all of the Edward Snowden revelations and similar in the past couple of years, it's had …

CITIZENFOUR, the recently premiered documentary by Laura Poitras about the beginning of the Edward Snowden NSA revelations, has won an Oscar for “Best Documentary” at this year's Academy Awards ceremony. The film shows Snowden's efforts to expose the gross abuses of the US government's National Security Agency, along with the help of Laura Poitras …

Everything your phone transmits to and receives from your network providers phone tower is encrypted, so that only the network operator can receive your calls and data and route them as you request. This is all encrypted with a set of keys on the sim card inside your phone and another set …

Hot off of the heels of breaking news on the biggest digital bank heist run in history, Kaspersky labs, the anti-malware firm, has released a new batch of information that indirectly paints the NSA and the US government as having inserted malware into the firmware of commercial hard drives. While …

Microsoft is now the first major cloud provider to make use of the ISO/IEC 27018 international standard for cloud privacy. From now on, Microsoft Azure and Office 365 customers will be notified when a government data request is received, allowing for more transparency. The standard was published by the International …