Vice has become one of the most interesting but down to earth, documentary machines in the past few years, pumping out everything from look-ins at North Korean slave labour camps in Siberia, to hanging out with General Butt Naked. But it's not all warlords and despots on their radar, sometimes …
Read More »Syrian Electronic Army hacks Skype’s Twitter
The Syrian Electronic Army has hacked in to the official Skype Twitter account to accuse Microsoft of selling user data to governments around the world. The first in a series of tweets reads: “Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook). They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the …
Read More »Dell apologises for leaving NSA backdoors in hardware
Earlier this week at the 30th annual Chaos Communication Congress, Dell, among other US based tech firms, was accused of leaving deliberate backdoors in its software and hardware, to make it easier for the NSA to install malware and viruses on the machines and gain access to the information stored …
Read More »Kim Dotcom alludes to US phone tapping
The overreaching of the US government's domestic and international spy programs continues to be theorised in the latest revelations from Kim Dotcom's extradition trial, with the Megaupload founder and expert witnesses suggesting that the FBI may have used a fake mobile phone tower to record his phone calls, as late …
Read More »NSA was mining Google, Yahoo servers
If you read tech news sites like ours with any frequency, chances are you're well aware at this point that the NSA has its ear to a glass on every bedroom wall in the digital world. We're well aware that companies like Google and Facebook cooperate with it and we …
Read More »Stop Watching Us rally draws thousands
Organisers of the Stop Watching Us protest rally that took place in Washington DC over the weekend, are calling it the biggest anti-mass surveillance protest in US history, as thousands arrived to listen to speeches, march and to deliver a petition to government, requesting an end to the mass collection …
Read More »Snowden documents to show international PRISM coop
If you work for an international organisation that has had some dealings with the NSA and its PRISM scheme, but you haven't been found out yet, better duck and cover, as Snowden is set to release documents highlighting the cooperation between your agency and American authorities. Edward Snowden has already …
Read More »EFF showcases Stop Watching Us protest against NSA
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted up a video urging the people of America and specifically Washington DC, to join the Stop Watching Us protest this Saturday (26th October) against the NSA and US government's surveillance schemes like PRISM, secret laws and the mass collection of personal and private data …
Read More »Another company shuts down to protect users from NSA
The NSA and its PRISM data collection has been a hot topic for a while now. Ever since Edward Snowden flew to Hong Kong and dumped the news on the world that none of us can really say anything privately online, a lot of people have been trying to figure …
Read More »EU politicians back NSA blocking data drafts
The pressure is mounting for blanket data gathering organisations the world over, as members of European parliament (MEP) yesterday voted with overwhelming support to block the transfer of personal data to US corporations and agencies and tightened the law on digital privacy too. Under new draft laws, US companies operating …
Read More »Legal experts brand NSA and GCHQ surveillance illegal
While the British and US government's have been keen to defend their Tempora and PRISM surveillance programs, it looks like the international community might not feel the same way. After some scrutiny by legal experts at the European Parliament this week, several individuals concluded that the actions of both governments …
Read More »NSA head and deputy to step down
Both the top dog and his second in command at the NSA spying agency are set to step down in the near future according to US officials, which may go some way to restoring faith in the organisation that has had its reputation destroyed in recent months due to revelations …
Read More »US Congressman wants to shackle NSA spying
Maybe it's time we put our scepticism aside for a second and considered that maybe not all politicians are liars and charlatans. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, one of the original authors of the US' Patriot Act, has called for the NSA's ability to survey its own citizens to be severely curtailed …
Read More »NSA’s PRISM surveillance may extend to New Zealand too
While companies like Lavabit have fearless leaders that are willing to shutdown their long term businesses to protect their customers, governments seem less and less willing to do the right thing for their people. According to a few New Zealand journalists, the Dotcom spying case involved not only the country's …
Read More »$100 gadget to block the NSA
John McAfee wants to protect us from the NSA, with a d-central device that communicates directly with your devices to create a private network – this network would be inaccessible to the government. The technology has been planned for a few years, but with the recent NSA leaks, work on …
Read More »Zuckerberg criticises US stance on NSA PRISM surveillance
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, has spoken out against the way the NSA handled the public reveal of its PRISM surveillance program, saying that it made it very hard for technology companies like his, to assuage public concern and make customers feel protected. Thse revelations were made at the recent TechCrunch …
Read More »Of course the NSA is defending its data gathering
Well you wouldn't expect it to do a Microsoft now would you? Putting its big dog forward, the NSA chief General Keith Alexander spoke out at a cyber security conference yesterday, where he addressed security professionals from around the world, promising to answer any questions they had. While Wired points …
Read More »XKeyScore: The NSA tool that can record everything you do online
We've all heard about PRISM at this point and we're all suitably terrified. Unfortunately, the scares don't stop there, as new documents released today have detailed one of the NSA's tools of the trade. Known as X-Keyscore, the metadata and content analysis tool is able to track down a person's …
Read More »Big tech firms urge Obama to allow PRISM disclosure
One of the biggest problems with the US government's PRISM information gathering program, is that it forbids many of the companies involved from being open about what information has been shared – making it hard for anyone to know exactly what data has been collected about them. Yesterday though, many …
Read More »The world and his dog is suing the NSA
Headed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a large group of different businesses and organisations, including those representing drug reform, gun lobby groups, religious councils, privacy advocates and environmental groups, have filed a lawsuit against the American National Security Agency, Department of Justice, attorney general Eric Holder, his assistant, the FBI …
Read More »Microsoft let the NSA record Skype video calls
We all know companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook and others, have been sharing information with the authorities in the US for quite some time, but now it's come to light that Microsoft even allowed the NSA to record video conversations people were having using the VOIP service, Skype. This …
Read More »The NSA might have bugged EU offices
The European parliament is not happy and understandably so. A new report has emerged, dating back from 2010, that suggests the NSA might have bugged the computer networks of EU offices in Washington and New York, citing the EU as a “target.” Martin Schulz, current head of the EU parliament, has …
Read More »Apple claims never to have heard of PRISM
It's been nearly two weeks now since we heard about the American PRISM program that was collating huge amounts of digital communication data from some of the world's biggest tech firms, with the supposed purpose being to help the authorities route out terrorists. However, since then, many of the technology …
Read More »Google delivers PRISM data to government by hand, or FTP
PRISM has become a shining example of encroaching government surveillance on western civilization and understandably, people are mad about it. However, a Google spokesperson has refuted claims that government agencies have direct access to its servers – it simply delivers the data by hand or FTP. This isn't necessary Google's …
Read More »NSA whistleblow outs himself
Edward Snowden, an ex-computer security admin for the US' CIA has revealed himself as the one that leaked internal government documents to the Guardian newspaper, in an effort to expose the controlling stake the US government had in the online interactions of not only its citizens, but those of foreign …
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