Tag: surveillance

Microsoft Ad Campaign Puts a Hotspot Inside a Magazine

An anonymous reader writes “Microsoft is putting in real Wi-Fi hardware hotspots inside some copies of the latest issue of Forbes magazine. The unique Office 365 promotion was revealed in a post on the Slickdeals.net message board. The WiFi router, when activated, offers 15 days of free WiFi service via T-Mobile’s network on up to five devices at once.” Which is more impressive: Wi-Fi hotspot in 2013, or E-ink display in 2008? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Ad Campaign Puts a Hotspot Inside a Magazine

Facebook’s Providing Free (Or Cheap) Data Around the World—For Facebook Apps

Facebook has announced that, over the coming months, it will be partnering with 18 network operators in 14 countries to provide users with free or discounted data for some of its mobile apps. More »

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Facebook’s Providing Free (Or Cheap) Data Around the World—For Facebook Apps

Huawei Claims It Has the World’s Fastest 4G Phone—But Who Really Cares?

Huawei could add a waffle-maker to its Ascend P2, and I doubt even that would be enough to pull people over to its side of the phone stores. Unlike the Ascend D2 unveiled at CES, there’s no 3,000mAh battery lurking here (you’ll have to “make do” with a 2420 one), but there’s a CAT 4LTE chipset, meaning 4G speeds can reach 150Mbps (the iPhone 5 and S3 LTE only have CAT 3, FYI). More »

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Huawei Claims It Has the World’s Fastest 4G Phone—But Who Really Cares?

Seattle Mayor returns police drones to the manufacturer

Seattle’s police force were very hot-to-trot for a pair of new surveillance drones, an issue that became a lightning rod for criticism of the scandal-haunted force. After public outcry, the city’s mayor simply returned the UAVs to their manufacturer Later this afternoon, Mayor Mike McGinn will announce that he is grounding the Seattle Police Department’s controversial drone program and returning the two remotely controlled planes to the vendor, according to sources at City Hall who asked not to be named. “The mayor and chief had a conversation and agreed it was time to end the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program,” one of the sources tells us. “It had become a distraction to the two things the department is working hard on, general public safety and community-building work.” The news comes on the heels of—and largely in response to—an angry hearing yesterday held by Seattle City Council member Bruce Harrell, who was considering legislation to restrict the use of the drones for police investigations. The program has created a slowly burning outcry since 2010, when the city purchased the units for intelligence gathering with the help of a federal Homeland Security grant. Crime Mayor Will Kill SPD’s Drone Program [Dominic Holden/The Stranger] ( Thanks, Fipi Lele! )

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Seattle Mayor returns police drones to the manufacturer

DARPA’s SeeMee Satellites Are a Soldier’s On-Demand Eye In the Sky

While UAVs have joined spy satellites as an indispensable part of America’s military operations—especially in delivering timely, accurate intel to troops on the ground—they are not the end-all-be-all perfect solution, even in coordination. That’s why DARPA plans to supplement these unmanned intelligence gathering platforms with jet-deployed constellations of micro-satellites. Soon, every grunt will have access to a real-time battlefield mini-map just in like video games. More »

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DARPA’s SeeMee Satellites Are a Soldier’s On-Demand Eye In the Sky

FBI responds to ACLU FOIA request…with 111 blank pages

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI seeking details of its surveillance policy — who it spies upon, and how, and under what circumstances. The FBI sent back two 50+ page memos in reply, each of them totally blacked out except for some information on the title page. In a 12-minute video posted online, Weissmann spoke about two memos: one focused on the use of GPS tracking on forms of transportation beyond cars, the other regarding how Jones applies to tracking methods outside of GPS (presumably like cellphone ping data). “Is it going to apply to boats, is it going to apply to airplanes?” Weissmann asks in the video. “Is it going to apply at the border? What’s it mean for the consent that’s given by an owner? What does it mean if consent is given by a possessor? And this is all about GPS, by the way, without getting into other types of techniques.” And those questions remain wholly unanswered. “The Justice Department’s unfortunate decision leaves Americans with no clear understanding of when we will be subjected to tracking—possibly for months at a time—or whether the government will first get a warrant,” Catherine Crump, an ACLU staff attorney, wrote on Wednesday. FBI to ACLU: Nope, we won’t tell you how, when, or why we track you [Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica]

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FBI responds to ACLU FOIA request…with 111 blank pages

SkypeHide promises to hide secret messages in silent Skype packets, even when authorities are listening

Buzzing around the internet this week: Polish security researcher and professor Wojciech Mazurczyk (left) claims to be developing a way to hide secret, un-eavesdroppable messages in “silent” packets transmitted within Skype conversations . He and his team plan to present SkypeHide at a steganography conference in Montpellier, France, this coming June. VentureBeat has a writeup here . The ease with which Skype can be snooped by law enforcement is well-known . I’ll be interested to hear what other security researchers make of Mazurczyk’s project, when and if it is eventually released.

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SkypeHide promises to hide secret messages in silent Skype packets, even when authorities are listening

Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

New submitter electron sponge writes “On Friday morning, the Senate renewed the FISA Amendments Act (PDF), which allows for warrantless electronic eavesdropping, for an additional five years. The act, which was originally passed by Congress in 2008, allows law enforcement agencies to access private communications as long as one participant in the communications could reasonably be believed to be outside the United States. This law has been the subject of a federal lawsuit, and was argued before the Supreme Court recently. ‘The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.'” The EFF points out that the Senate was finally forced to debate the bill, but the proposed amendments that would have improved it were rejected. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

Revealed: NSA targeting domestic computer systems in secret test

The National Security Agency’s Perfect Citizen program hunts for vulnerabilities in “large-scale” utilities, including power grid and gas pipeline controllers, new documents from EPIC show. [Read more]

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Revealed: NSA targeting domestic computer systems in secret test

California law enforcement moves to buy drones, draws controversy

UAV set up for Wylye intersection. QinetiQ group Since Congress passed legislation in February ordering the Federal Aviation Administration to fast-track the approval of unmanned aerial vehicles—more colloquially known as drones—for use by law enforcement agencies, police and sheriff departments across the country have been scrambling to purchase the smaller, unarmed cousins of the Predator and Reaper drones which carry out daily sorties over Afghanistan, Yemen, and other theaters of operation. Alameda County in California has become one of the central battlegrounds over the introduction of drones to domestic police work. Earlier this year , Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern raised the hackles of local civil libertarians (and there are quite a few of those in the county, which encompasses Berkeley and Oakland) by declaring his intention to purchase a drone to assist with “emergency response.” According to Ahern, Alameda Sheriff’s personnel first tested a UAV in fall 2011 and gave a public demonstration of the machine’s usefulness for emergency responses during the Urban Shield SWAT competition in late October. Were Alameda County to purchase a drone, it would set a precedent in California, which has long been an innovator in law enforcement tactics: from SWAT teams (pioneered in Delano and Los Angeles) to anti-gang tactics such as civil injunctions. The first documented incident of a drone being used to make an arrest in the United States occurred in North Dakota in June 2011, when local police received assistance from an unarmed Predator B drone that belonged to US Customs and Border Protection . The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration have also reportedly used drones for domestic investigations. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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California law enforcement moves to buy drones, draws controversy