Chinese authorities are attacking users who are connecting to Apple's iCloud website in what appears to be a surveillance push to steal users' login credentials, according to a Chinese censorship monitoring group.
After the new iPhone 6 went on sale in China, connections to iCloud.com were hijacked and stripped of the usual encryption that prevents hackers and government spies from intercepting the username and password typed by someone connecting to the site. This is another example of what is technically known as a "man-in-the-middle" (MITM) attack. China has been accused of intercepting connections with a MITM attack against Github, Google, and, more recently, Yahoo.
Read moreFBI Director warned in stark terms Thursday against the push by technology companies to encrypt smartphone data and operating systems, arguing that murder cases could be stalled, suspects could walk free and justice could be thwarted by a locked phone or an encrypted hard drive.
Privacy advocates and technology experts called the concerns exaggerated and little more than recycled arguments the government has raised against encryption since the early 1990s. Likening encrypted data to a safe that cannot be cracked or a closet door that won't open, the move by tech companies to protect user communications in the name of privacy is certain to impede a wide range of criminal investigations.
Read moreSnapchat reportedly has more than 100 million active users of its free photo and video messaging app, but it has never made any money from them. Now it’s hoping to change that by running adverts within the app.
The subject matter may have been scary, but Snapchat was at pains to tell its users that it wants to steer away from “creepy” ad-targeting, as well as avoiding being too intrusive with advertising. Snapchat explained that It’s the first time we had done anything like this because it’s the first time we had been paid to put content in that space. It’s going to feel a little weird at first, but they are taking the plunge.
Read moreImagine attending a stand-up comedy show where entrance to the club is free but you are told that you will be charged a specific price per laugh. The more you laugh, the more you pay. If you don’t laugh, you don’t pay. Exactly that type of “pay-per-laugh” business model is being tested at a comedy club in Barcelona.
What makes this pay-per-laugh model possible is facial recognition software loaded onto tablets that are attached to the backs of seats in the theater. This facial recognition technology can detect each and every laugh and then charge people. For now, this innovative pay-per-laugh model appears to be a winner for Spanish comedians.
Read moreFacebook wants assurances from the Drug Enforcement Administration that it's not operating any more fake profile pages as part of ongoing investigations.
Facebook's chief security officer said to DEA Administrator that law enforcement agencies need to follow the same rules about being truthful on Facebook as civilian users. Those rules include a ban on lying about who you are. Sullivan in response to a New York woman's federal lawsuit claimed that a DEA agent created a fake online persona using her name and photographs stored on her cellphone. A woman said her pictures were retrieved from her cellphone after she was arrested.
Read moreOne of the most popular application’s promise of anonymity while sharing secrets via its app rings less true today than it did last week about the app’s questionable tracking and use of user data. Among the revelations the messenger tracks the location of users who have opted out of geolocation services and has shared user data with the FBI.
A number of unsavory things about how the company collects, tracks and shares user was datadiscovered. One of the most popular apps has created an in-house mapping tool that enables its employees to filter and search GPS data to location posters. The technology, for example, enables the company to monitor all the geolocated messages sent from the Pentagon.
Read moreNearly 7 million usernames and passwords from Dropbox, the free cloud service for storing your photos, videos, and documents across devices, were leaked onto the internet. And just days prior former NSA contractor recommended that users drop Dropbox if they wanted to protect their privacy.
Dropbox is standing firm on its position that its service is fully encrypted, and denies responsibility for the leak of emails and passwords, many of which have been expired for some time now. Dropbox instead shifts the blame to users and third parties stated that these usernames and passwords had been unfortunately stolen from other services and used in attempts to log in to Dropbox accounts.
Read moreAn interesting file turned out to be a sample of modular malware for MacOS X. Even after preliminary analysis it was clear that the file was not designed for any good purpose.
Further investigation showed that a backdoor, a keylogger and a Trojan-Spy were hidden inside the sample. It is particularly noteworthy that the keylogger uses an open-source kernel extension. The extension's code is publicly available, for example, on GitHub! Depending on their purpose, these files are detected. The result of the check determines where the Trojan's files will be installed:
Read moreTo stop terrorists and other criminals, cell phones should have encryption backdoors to enable US government surveillance, argues FBI Director. After one year on the job, Comey outlined his vision for the future of the FBI, including a bigger focus on cyber and the creation of a new intelligence office within the bureau.
Cell phone encryption will prevent the federal government from stopping terrorists and child molesters unless the government is given special access. FBI Director called out the default encryption in Apple's iOS 8, and the optional Android encryption that will become the default for that operating system when Android 5.0 Lollipop is released next month.
Read moreImagine being able to download a full HD movie in less than three second, or back your entire computer up in less than a minute without the need for any cables. Samsung has announced that it has made a breakthrough in Wi-Fi technology which will allow a 1GB file to be downloaded in less than three seconds.
Samsung claims it is able to eliminate a problem where too many signals from different smartphones, tablets or computers cause interference, which hampers speed. It’s worth noting though, that this new breakthrough doesn’t suddenly mean you will have faster internet, your internet service provider controls that. This simply means faster connections in your internal network between devices.
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