Tag: fbi

FBI Agreed To Destroy Laptops of Clinton Aides With Immunity Deal, Sources Say

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Fox News: Immunity deals for two top Hillary Clinton aides included a side arrangement obliging the FBI to destroy their laptops after reviewing the devices, House Judiciary Committee sources told Fox News on Monday. Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015. This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public — in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said. The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee fired off a letter Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking why the DOJ and FBI agreed to the restrictive terms, including that the FBI would destroy the laptops after finishing the search. The immunity deals for Mills and Samuelson, made as part of the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state, apparently included a series of “side agreements” that were negotiated by Samuelson and Mills’ attorney Beth Wilkinson. The side deals were agreed to on June 10, less than a month before FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency would recommend no charges be brought against Clinton or her staff. Judiciary Committee aids told FoxNews.com that the destruction of the laptops is particularly troubling as it means that the computers could not be used as evidence in future legal proceedings, should new information or circumstances arise. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FBI Agreed To Destroy Laptops of Clinton Aides With Immunity Deal, Sources Say

Apple logs your iMessage contacts and could share them with police

Apple’s iMessage had a few security holes in March and April that potentially leaked photos and contacts, respectively. Though quickly patched, they are a reminder that the company faces a never-ending arms race to shore up its security to keep malicious hackers and government agencies out. But that doesn’t mean they will always be able to keep it private. A report from The Intercept states that iMessage conversation metadata gets logged in Apple’s servers, which the company could be compelled to turn over to law enforcement by court order. While the content of those messages remains encrypted and out of the police’s hands, these records list time, date, frequency of contact and limited location information. When an iOS user types in a phone number to begin a text conversation, their device pings servers to determine whether the new contact uses iMessage. If not, texts are sent over SMS and appear in green bubbles, while Apple’s proprietary data messages appear in blue ones. Allegedly, they log all of these unseen network requests. But those also include time and date stamps along with the user’s IP address, identifying your location to some degree, according to The Intercept . Like the phone logs of yore, investigators could legally request these records and Apple would be obliged to comply. While the company insisted that iMessage was end-to-end encrypted in 2013, securing user messages even if law enforcement got access, Apple said nothing about metadata. Apple confirmed to The Intercept that it does comply with subpoenas and other legal requests for these exact logs, but maintained that message content is still kept private. Their commitment to user security isn’t really undermined by these illuminations — phone companies have been giving this information to law enforcement for decades — but it does illustrate what they can and cannot protect. While they resisted FBI requests for backdoor iPhone access earlier this year and then introduced a wholly redesigned file system with a built-in unified encryption method on every device, they can’t keep authorities from knowing when and where you text people. Source: The Intercept

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Apple logs your iMessage contacts and could share them with police

Conspiracy! The Reddit rundown on the man who deleted Clinton e-mails

Bleach those bits away. (credit: Adina Firestone ) A system administrator with Platte River Networks, the company that took over hosting Hillary Clinton’s mail server after it was moved out of her basement in Chappaqua, has been the target of a crowdsourced investigation on Reddit into whether he took part in a conspiracy to cover up Clinton’s e-mails. Paul Combetta, an employee of Platte River Networks who was granted immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department in exchange for cooperation with the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s e-mails, apparently went to Reddit for help with a sticky problem related to the e-mail investigation by the House Select Committee on Benghazi—scrubbing the e-mails of Clinton’s personal address. While the post doesn’t provide evidence that Clinton herself instructed Combetta to erase her e-mails, it does suggest that his staff wanted to excise her private e-mail address from the archives to be turned over to the State Department—ånd in turn, to the House Select Committee. The later destruction of the e-mails during the continuing investigation was apparently, as Combetta told investigators, an “oh-shit moment.” Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Conspiracy! The Reddit rundown on the man who deleted Clinton e-mails

Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7

Apple just sent out press invites for its next major event. As expected, the event will take place on September 7. Like last year, the iPhone event will be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Read more…

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Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7

FBI Raids SAT Critic Over Leaked Test Questions

The Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on the home of Manuel Alfaro, former executive director of assessment design and development at the College Board, which develops the SAT, an aptitude test for college bound high schoolers, according to a report by Reuters . Read more…

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FBI Raids SAT Critic Over Leaked Test Questions

FBI finds 14,900 more files from Hillary Clinton’s email server

Just because the US Attorney General isn’t bringing charges over Hillary Clinton’s private email server doesn’t mean that it’s all over — far from it. FBI investigators have unearthed 14, 900 more files (email and documents) on the server, or almost 50 percent more than Clinton’s lawyers originally turned over to the State Department. Just what’s in those documents isn’t clear, although they come from a disc the FBI obtained that includes email and attachments sent directly to or from the former Secretary of State. Clinton’s attorneys had initially turned over ‘just’ 30, 000 messages that they considered work-related, although the FBI didn’t find signs that she or her staff had deleted anything in a bid to hide it. Whatever the contents, Clinton will face added pressure. A judge in a lawsuit over public records has tossed the State Department’s proposed plans to release documents starting October 14th, and is pushing for an earlier release. That won’t happen too much sooner if the judge is successful (the Department will only have to present a revised plan on September 22nd), but it’ll be enough to shake up the government’s disclosure strategy. Source: Washington Post

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FBI finds 14,900 more files from Hillary Clinton’s email server

Looks Like a Russian Cybergang Hacked Into One of the World’s Largest Payment Systems

According to a report by security blogger Brian Krebs, Oracle’s popular MICROS point-of-sale terminals support website was commandeered by a Russian cybergang. This is bad since MICROS is in the top three most popular payment systems in the world. Read more…

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Looks Like a Russian Cybergang Hacked Into One of the World’s Largest Payment Systems

Apple’s Touch ID blocks feds—armed with warrant—from unlocking iPhone

Accused Dallas pimp Martavious Banks Keys was ordered by a federal judge to unlock his iPhone with his fingerprint. (credit: Facebook via The Dallas Morning News ) A Dallas, Texas man accused of prostituting underage girls was secretly ordered by a federal judge to unlock his iPhone using his fingerprint, according to federal court documents that are now unsealed. It’s rare that we  see  a case demanding that a phone be unlocked in that manner, but we should expect more as the mainstream public begins embracing fingerprint technology. Ever since 2013, when Apple popularized this form of unlocking technology, legal experts have predicted that these types of government demands would slowly become more common. Experts also warned these demands are probably not a breach of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. As an aside, some courts don’t necessarily think that compelling a suspect to reveal their computer passcode is a constitutional violation. A Philadelphia man accused of possessing child pornography has been behind bars on a contempt charge for more than seven months for refusing to divulge his password.  The man’s attorney claims it’s a constitutional violation to compel his client to assist the authorities with their prosecution. A federal appeals court has tentatively agreed to hear the case in September as the suspect (who has not been charged with a crime) remains in prison. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple’s Touch ID blocks feds—armed with warrant—from unlocking iPhone

Millions of Android devices have flawed full disk encryption

Hackers can use brute force to break into tens of millions of Android devices using full disk encryption, thanks to a series of security issues linked specifically to Android kernel flaws and Qualcomm processors, Neowin reports. The vulnerabilities were uncovered by security researcher Gal Beniamini , who is working with Google and Qualcomm to patch the problems — and some of the flaws have already been addressed. However, a few of the issues may not be patchable, instead requiring new hardware, the report says. Any phone using Android 5.0 or later uses full disk encryption, the same security feature at the heart of Apple’s recent fight with the FBI . Full disk encryption makes all data on a device unrecognizable without a unique key. Even though modern Android devices use this security feature, Beniamini’s research found that an attacker can exploit kernel flaws and vulnerabilities in some of Qualcomm’s security measures to get that encryption key. Then, all that stands between the hacker and a device’s information is a password. Since any attack on an Android device would still require brute force and additional hacking methods, this isn’t an immediate security threat for a majority of users. But, it is notable for those who put their complete trust in full disk encryption. We’ve reached out to Qualcomm for comment on the flaw and will update this story as the company responds. Update: A Qualcomm spokesperson gave Engadget the following comment: “Providing technologies that support robust security and privacy is a priority for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI). QTI continues to work proactively both internally as well as with security researchers such as Gal Beniamini to identify and address potential security vulnerabilities. The two security vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-6639 and CVE-2016-2431) discussed in Beniamini’s June 30 blog post were also discovered internally and patches were made available to our customers and partners. We have and will continue to work with Google and the Android ecosystem to help address security vulnerabilities and to recommend improvements to the Android ecosystem to enhance security overall.” Source: Gal Beniamini

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Millions of Android devices have flawed full disk encryption

Advertiser That Tracked Around 100M Phone Users Without Consent Pays $950,000

Mobile advertising firm InMobi will be paying a fine of $950, 000 and revamp its services to resolve federal regulators’ claims that it deceptively tracked locations of hundreds of millions of people, including children. Ars Technica reports:The US Federal Trade Commission alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday that Singapore-based InMobi undermined phone users’ ability to make informed decisions about the collection of their location information. While InMobi claimed that its software collected geographical whereabouts only when end users provided opt-in consent, the software in fact used nearby Wi-Fi signals to infer locations when permission wasn’t given, FTC officials alleged. InMobi then archived the location information and used it to push targeted advertisements to individual phone users. Specifically, the FTC alleged, InMobi collected nearby basic service set identification addresses, which act as unique serial numbers for wireless access points. The company, which thousands of Android and iOS app makers use to deliver ads to end users, then fed each BSSID into a “geocorder” database to infer the phone user’s latitude and longitude, even when an end user hadn’t provided permission for location to be tracked through the phone’s dedicated location feature. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Advertiser That Tracked Around 100M Phone Users Without Consent Pays $950,000