The cheapest Mac Pro you can buy, Apple informed us last week , will cost you $3, 000. That’s a pretty penny, sure, but not outrageous for a workstation these days. What if, though, you spec it out as far as you can go? That’s when we hit new car territory. Read more…
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A Fully Loaded Mac Pro Could Cost You $14,000
An anonymous “US intelligence source” told a German newspaper that Obama had been briefed on the fact that the NSA had tapped German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone in 2010, and that he’d personally let it go. Expect a lot more of this, as spooks who are sick of being kicked around for conducting the spying that high-ranking administration officials had been delighted to green-light start to whisper the names of their collaborators in government. Bild am Sonntag newspaper quoted US intelligence sources as saying that National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander had briefed Obama on the operation against Merkel in 2010. “Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue,” the newspaper quoted a high-ranking NSA official as saying. News weekly Der Spiegel reported that leaked NSA documents showed that Merkel’s phone had appeared on a list of spying targets since 2002, and was still under surveillance shortly before Obama visited Berlin in June. Obama aware of Merkel spying since 2010: German media [Deborah Cole/AFP] ( via /. )
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Spooks throw Obama under the bus: He knew about Merkel spying since 2010
Piracy is a dangerous game. You never know if the hosts are out to get money , or maybe just out to get you . Turns out the guy who ran a pirate haven called Uploader Talk was the latter. Now, after a year of stealing uploader’s info from deep cover, the jig is up . Read more…
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Magnificent Asshole Reveals Popular Piracy Site Was a Trap All Along
A Snowden leak, discussed in detail in Der Spiegel , shows how the NSA broke into the email servers of the Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s public account, and used that access to wiretap the president, cabinet members, and senior diplomats. The NSA described the program, called “Flatliquid” as “lucrative.” A second program, “Whitetamale,” also spied on senior Mexican politicians (including presidential candidate Peña Niet), targeting efforts to change the country’s disastrous War on Drugs. Rousseff believes Washington’s reasons for employing such unfriendly methods are partly economic, an accusation that the NSA and its director, General Keith Alexander, have denied. Yet according to the leaked NSA documents, the US also monitored email and telephone communications at Petrobras, the oil corporation in which the Brazilian government holds a majority stake. Brazil possesses enormous offshore oil reserves. Just how intensively the US spies on its neighbors can be seen in another, previously unknown operation in Mexico, dubbed “Whitetamale” by the NSA. In August 2009, according to internal documents, the agency gained access to the emails of various high-ranking officials in Mexico’s Public Security Secretariat that combats the drug trade and human trafficking. This hacking operation allowed the NSA not only to obtain information on several drug cartels, but also to gain access to “diplomatic talking-points.” In the space of a single year, according to the internal documents, this operation produced 260 classified reports that allowed US politicians to conduct successful talks on political issues and to plan international investments. The tone of the document that lists the NSA’s “tremendous success” in monitoring Mexican targets shows how aggressively the US intelligence agency monitors its southern neighbor. “These TAO accesses into several Mexican government agencies are just the beginning — we intend to go much further against this important target,” the document reads. It goes on to state that the divisions responsible for this surveillance are “poised for future successes.” Fresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican President’s Email [Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark/Speigel Online]
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NSA hacked email of Mexican president and drug-war reformers
Rumor has it that Netflix will begin testing enhanced content and extra features, first for its original shows such as House of Cards , then DVD extra-style content from partner providers if it goes well. Read more…
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Rumor has it that Netflix will begin testing enhanced content and extra features, first for its orig
Nerval’s Lobster writes “This year’s revelations about NSA surveillance have upended the idea that our data—any of it—is truly secure from prying eyes. That uncertainty has sparked the rise of several businesses with a simple proposition: you can send whatever you want via their online service (text, images, video), and that data will vaporize within seconds of the recipient opening it up. One of the most popular of those services is Snapchat, which allows users to take “Snaps” (i.e., videos or photos) that self-destruct a few seconds after the recipient opens them; that data also disappears from the company’s servers. But is ‘disappearing’ data truly secure from prying eyes? Earlier this week, Snapchat admitted to a loophole in its schema that leaves Snaps open to viewing by law enforcement — provided the latter shows up at the company’s front door with a warrant. Until a recipient opens a Snap, it’s stored in the company’s datacenter. In theory, law enforcement could request that Snapchat send it an unopened Snap. ‘If we receive a search warrant from law enforcement for the contents of Snaps and those Snaps are still on our servers, ‘ read an Oct. 14 posting on Snapchat’s corporate blog, ‘a federal law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) obliges us to produce the Snaps to the requesting law enforcement agency.’ Law-enforcement entities have hit Snapchat with ‘about a dozen’ search warrants for unopened Snaps since May 2013. ‘Law enforcement requests sometimes require us to preserve Snaps for a time, like when law enforcement is determining whether to issue a search warrant for Snaps, ‘ the blog continued. That surveillance could also go beyond unopened Snaps: Snapchat ‘Stories, ‘ or a cluster of Snaps, live on the company’s servers for up to 24 hours and can be viewed multiple times, which broadens the window for law enforcement to poke its way in.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Snapchat Search Warrants Emphasize Data Vulnerability
Sony has announced a couple of new cameras early this morning, including the A7 and A7R, both mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras with a twist that’s unprecedented for that type of device – a full-frame sensor is housed within each. That makes these the smallest, lightest full-frame cameras with swappable lenses to boast full-frame power, and with a 36.4 megapixel sensor on the A7R, and a 24.3 megapixel one in the A7. Of course, it’s the sheer size of those sensors that makes all the difference here. Full-frame blows away the APS-C and micro four thirds sensors found in most MILC systems, like Sony’s existing NEX line or the Olympus OM-D models, in terms of their ability to capture light and deliver better over all image quality through accurate and rich color and contrast capture. The new Sony A7R also omit an optical low pass filter, which results in better resolution and detail rendering. Both of these new cameras have a new BIONZ X processor, a hybrid AF system that uses both phase and contrast detection for quicker focus, an OLED Tru-Finder hybrid optical viewfinder and a 3-inch rear screen that can be tilted, another first for a full-frame. ILCE-7_tilt_low ILCE-7R_wSEL35F28Z_top ILCE-7_front ILCE-7_rear ILCE-7_wSEL2870_right View Slideshow Previous Next Exit Both camera models also boast both NFC and Wi-Fi for easy pairing and direct transfer of photos to devices, and they’re built for pros, with dust- and moisture-resistant magnesium alloy cases. They take a new full-frame E-mount lens, of which Sony is release five in time for launch, and they also work backwards with standard E-mount lenses designed for the NEX series, albeit with some cropping. There will also be an adapter for Sony’s A-mount lenses, which work with their non-mirrorless DSLR range. The A7R and A7 will both go on sale in December, for $2,300 and $1,700 for body-only, respectively. There will also be kits available with some of the new lenses. Sony’s new full-frame interchangeable powerhouses aren’t cheap, but they aren’t crazily expensive, either – on par with the new lower cost line of full-frame DSLRs, in fact. Sony has been absolutely blazing a trail through the digital photography world these past few years, with its RX- line of powerful pocket cameras , and even the innovative (if odd) Q- series cameraphone lens attachments . The A7R and A7 look to be a continuation of that trend, but we’ll reserve final judgement until we get some hands on time with these new photographic monsters.
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Sony Unveils Beastly And Beautiful A7 And A7R Full-Frame Mirrorless Cameras
Today, nearly half of the world’s total population has potential access to some kind of 3G or 4G network, which is five times the level of mobile coverage we were at just five years ago. Unfortunately, not all mobile broadband is created equal—especially where price is concerned. Read more…
There have been no end of reports about the NSA’s mind-blowing decrytion techniques . But just how much of it is super-smart computer science, and how much is brute force? Read more…
MikeatWired writes “It wasn’t ever seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged that it secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days before the servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors. Freedom Hosting’s operator, Eric Eoin Marques, had rented the servers from an unnamed commercial hosting provider in France, and paid for them from a bank account in Las Vegas. It’s not clear how the FBI took over the servers in late July, but the bureau was temporarily thwarted when Marques somehow regained access and changed the passwords, briefly locking out the FBI until it gained back control. The new details emerged in local press reports from a Thursday bail hearing in Dublin, Ireland, where Marques, 28, is fighting extradition to America on charges that Freedom Hosting facilitated child pornography on a massive scale. He was denied bail today for the second time since his arrest in July. On August 4, all the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting — some with no connection to child porn — began serving an error message with hidden code embedded in the page. Security researchers dissected the code and found it exploited a security hole in Firefox to identify users of the Tor Browser Bundle, reporting back to a mysterious server in Northern Virginia. The FBI was the obvious suspect, but declined to comment on the incident. The FBI also didn’t respond to inquiries from WIRED today. But FBI Supervisory Special Agent Brooke Donahue was more forthcoming when he appeared in the Irish court yesterday to bolster the case for keeping Marque behind bars.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack