If you’ve seen the TV series "Person of Interest," then you might recall that during the opening narration from Season One, Harold Finch would say, “You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything.”
I was reminded of that when I saw a GIF that appears as if it could be a Chinese version of the show. It is a CCTV clip showing current surveillance in China. Thanks to artificial intelligence, China’s sadly named “Sky Net” system demonstrates just how creepy real-time surveillance can be.
Read moreThe U.S. National Security Agency conducted targeted surveillance over the past year against 106,000 foreigners suspected of being involved in terrorism and other crimes, using powers granted in a controversial section of law that’s set to expire at the end of this year.
The number of foreigners targeted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rose from 94,000 in fiscal year 2015, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified discussing the information. The program lets agencies collect the content of emails and other communications from suspected foreign criminals operating outside the U.S.
Read moreFor the past year, Apple has touted a mathematical tool that it describes as a solution to a paradoxical problem: mining user data while simultaneously protecting user privacy.
That secret weapon is "differential privacy," a novel field of data science that focuses on carefully adding random noise to an individual user's information before it's uploaded to the cloud. That way, a company such as Apple's total dataset reveals meaningful results without any one person's secrets being spilled. But differential privacy isn't a simple toggle switch between total privacy and no-holds-barred invasiveness.
Read moreAn international group of cryptography experts has forced the US NSA to back down over two data encryption techniques it wanted set as global industry standards, reflecting deep mistrust among close US allies.
In interviews and emails, academic and industry experts from countries including Germany, Japan and Israel worried that the U.S. electronic spy agency was pushing the new techniques not because they were good encryption tools, but because it knew how to break them. The NSA has now agreed to drop all but the most powerful versions of the techniques - those least likely to be vulnerable to hacks - to address the concerns.
Read moreResearchers have devised malware that can jump airgaps by using the infrared capabilities of an infected network's surveillance cameras to transmit data to and from attackers. The malware prototype could be a crucial ingredient for attacks that target some of the world's most sensitive networks.
Militaries, energy producers, and other critical infrastructure providers frequently disconnect such networks from the Internet as a precaution. In the event malware is installed, there is no way for it to make contact with attacker-controlled servers that receive stolen data or issue new commands.
Read moreWikiLeaks, a secret-sharing organization accused of playing a key role in Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, has released documents that it claims offer details of how Moscow uses state surveillance to spy on Internet and cellphone users.
The release, dubbed “Spy Files Russia,” appears to mark a shift for an organization that has long been accused of a reluctance to publish documents that could be embarrassing for the Russian state. As Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who now lives in Russia, put it in a tweet: “Plot twist.” However, other experts are less impressed.
Read moreThe new top-of-the-range iPhone does away with the home button and its built-in fingerprint reader in favor of a new biometric — called Face ID — which uses a 3D scan of the user’s face for authenticating and unlocking their device. It also replaces Touch ID for Apple Pay too.
Apple suggests this is an advancement over a fingerprint reader because it’s an easier and more natural action for the user to perform — you just look at the phone and it unlocks; no need to worry if you have wet fingers and so on. However offering to gate the smorgasbord of personal content that lives on a smartphone behind a face biometric inevitably raises lots of security questions.
Read moreChina's new cybersecurity law will enable its government to discover potential security vulnerabilities of any company doing business in the country, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future warns.
The law grants the China Information Technology Evaluation Center, an office in the Ministry of State Security, the power to request source code and other intellectual property of tech suppliers operating in the country. Information gleaned might easily be exploited by CNITSEC in furtherance of its intelligence operations. Director of strategic threat development at the firm reckons the measures place companies between a rock and a hard place.
Read moreWikileaks published another collection of files purportedly from the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the latest of which focuses on a framework used to infect machines using Windows operating systems.
The release unveiled a CIA program called Angelfire, which consists of a five-part framework that can maintain a persistent backdoor on an infected machine and execute custom implants that give the agency additional access to the device. Angelfire operates in five parts, each of which allowing the intelligence agency to lodge itself deeper into an infected machine to maintain access to files and information on the targeted device.
Read moreAnyone relying on the CIA for tech support got a nasty surprise this morning, as documents published by Wikileaks revealed a secret project to siphon out data through its technical liaison service, dating back to 2009.
The program, called ExpressLane, is designed to be deployed alongside a biometric collection system that the CIA provides to partner agencies. In theory, those partners are agreeing to provide the CIA with access to specific biometric data — but on the off-chance those partners are holding out on them, ExpressLane gives the agency a way to take it without anyone knowing. ExpressLane masquerades as a software update.
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