In the trove of documents provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is a treasure. It begins with a riddle: “What do the President of Pakistan, a cigar smuggler, an arms dealer, a counterterrorism target, and a combatting proliferation target have in common? They all used their everyday GSM phone during a flight.”
This riddle appeared in 2010 in SIDtoday, the internal newsletter of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, or SID, and it was classified “top secret.” It announced the emergence of a new field of espionage that had not yet been explored: the interception of data from phone calls made on board civil aircraft.
Read moreThousands of TalkTalk and Post Office customers have had their internet access cut by an attack targeting certain types of internet routers. A spokeswoman for the Post Office told that the problem began on Sunday and had affected about 100,000 of its customers.
TalkTalk also confirmed that some of its customers had been affected, and it was working on a fix. It is not yet known who is responsible for the attack. Earlier in the week, Germany's Deutsche Telekom revealed that up to 900,000 of its customers had lost their internet connection as a result of the attack. It involves the use of a modified form of the Mirai worm.
Read moreThe UK is due to pass its controversial new surveillance law, the Investigatory Powers Act, according to the Home Office. The Act, which has received overwhelming support in both the House of Commons and Lords, formally legalizes a number of mass surveillance programs.
It also introduces a new power which will force internet service providers to store browsing data on all customers for 12 months. Civil liberties campaigners have described the Act as one of the most extreme surveillance laws in any democracy, while law enforcement agencies believe that the collection of browsing data is vital in an age of ubiquitous internet communications.
Read moreMichael Page, a global recruitment consultancy, has been hacked and a wide range of personal information on 710,000 applicants has been stolen. The company has formally admitted the attack in the past hour.
The company claimed that the attack was perpetrated on 31 October and uncovered the next day. It also claimed that the hackers are all very nice boys and girls and have agreed to destroy the purloined data, a suggestion we find somewhat odd. Michael Page warned in an email to clients that, while names, email addresses and passwords were all accessed, the passwords were encrypted. However, the company admitted that the level of personal information spilled is much broader.
Read moreMinisters have been barred from wearing Apple Watches during Cabinet meetings amid concerns that they could be hacked by Russian spies.
Under David Cameron, several cabinet ministers wore the smart watches, including Michael Gove, the former Justice Secretary. However, under Theresa May ministers have been barred from wearing them amid concerns that they could be used by hackers as listening devices. Concerns have been raised after hackers obtained confidential emails from the Democratic National Congress during the US election. Mobile phones have already been barred from the Cabinet.
Read moreResearchers at University College London have taught a computer to imitate anyone's handwriting. They have created an algorithm that can take a sample of handwritten text, examine its qualities, and then write any text in the same style.
There are already typefaces in word processing programs that produce text in a fairly uniform handwritten style. But what Tom Haines and his fellow UCL researchers have done is create software that they claim reproduces the messy details of any individual writer's hand. They call their system My Text In Your Handwriting and have tried it out on samples of handwritten text from historical figures.
Read moreAlmost six million fraud and cyber crimes were committed last year in England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics has said. It estimated there were two million computer misuse offences and 3.8 million fraud offences in the 12 months to the end of March - suggesting fraud is the most common type of crime.
Most related to bank account fraud. The Crime Survey for England and Wales asks people about crime they have experienced and includes offences not reported to police. The most common types of fraud experienced were bank and credit account fraud, followed by "non-investment" fraud, such as scams related to online shopping.
Read moreThe United Nations Human Rights Council has passed a non-binding resolution condemning countries that intentionally disrupt citizens' internet access.
The resolution builds on the UN's previous statements on digital rights, reaffirming the organization's stance that "the same rights people have offline must also be protected online," in particular the freedom of expression covered under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The resolution was passed by consensus last Friday, but was opposed by a minority of authoritarian regimes including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia, as well as democracies like South Africa and India.
Read moreA company owned by Google has been given access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients from three hospitals run by a major London NHS trust.
DeepMind, the tech giant’s company most famous for its innovative use of artificial intelligence, is being provided with the patient information as part of an agreement with the Royal Free NHS trust, Chase Farm and Royal Free hospitals. It includes information about people who are HIV-positive as well as details of drug overdoses, abortions and patient data. DeepMind announced that it was developing a software in partnership with NHS hospitals to alert staff to patients at risk of deterioration and death through kidney failure.
Read moreBritish immigration officials have been hacking into the phones of refugees, including those of rape and torture victims, for the past three years.
Since 2013 officers have been given powers that allow them to engage in “property interference, including interference with equipment” through an amendment to the Police Act 1997. This grants them the legal power to install listening devices in homes, cars or detention centres - and the permission to hack into phones or computers. In a statement, the Home Office said the bill was “strengthening safeguards and oversight”.
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