Tag Archives: Spying

Huawei has long been at odds with the United States at this point, with the Chinese smartphone manufacturer consistently accused of being a security danger. The US government seems to be escalating these claims as it reportedly prepares to take the company to court over the alleged theft of trade …

We’ve all heard the stories of someone talking about cat food and then all sudden getting an adverts on Facebook for it. A group of academics must have had enough of it and decided to put these eavesdropping rumours to the test. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists out there, the …

The British government has announced plans to criminalise the practice of reporting on leaked documents, in an update of the Espionage Act. The move, which could see journalists jailed for as much as 14 years, is being called a campaign against whistleblowing, by detractors. Over the past few years, as surveillance …

While the British government continues to make it easier for law enforcement to view the internet history of its citizens, the U.S. House of Representatives is looking to make it more difficult. The House has passed a motion that if it makes it through the Senate, would require police to …

An online petition demanding that the UK government repeal the newly installed surveillance laws made possible by the Investigatory Powers Bill has now passed the threshold for debate in parliament. It needed at least 100,000 signatures, but has continued on since then and is closing on on 120,000 at the …

With the NSA and GCHQ so embedded with one another, concerns now arise that following the United States' presidential election, will GCHQ be able to maintain some autonomy in a world where Trump is president? This a real concern for privacy lobbyists, like the Open Rights Group, which wonders if …

Privacy International has managed to unearth thousands of documents which details decades of in-depth spying on British citizens by the country's intelligence agencies: GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. With minimum safeguards in place, those organisations have been snooping on British citizen's medical records, work histories and the online petitions they've signed, …

Despite David Cameron and Theresa May calling for a better insight into the websites we visit with the potentially fast tracked Investigatory Powers Bill, a committee of politicians has warned that it lacks clarity, not defining key points. It warned that if the tech-firms that must be complicit in the …

Amid all the arguments about encryption ongoing in the press and government right now, it's easy to forget that it's something that GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have been railing against for some time. I turns out that in 2010, it helped to reject a smartphone encryption standard that would …

Following the years of failed-attempts by politicians and copyright lobby groups to have the world accept distasteful bills like PIPA and SOPA, it's no surprise that the tactics to push them through have changed. Nowadays they're hidden within legislation like trade bills in the case of the TTIP and TPP, …

As much as Edward Snowden has been a popular public figure over the past couple of years after he revealed the depths of intelligence agency spying in America and around the world, he's had to live in relative hiding within Russia since. While he's made the odd video appearance at …

Shortly after his appointment as the United Nations' first head of privacy, Joseph Cannataci has called the current state of digital surveillance in the UK a “joke,” describing it as worse than anything George Orwell may have conjured up in his novel 1984. To address this and the oversight over …

Since the Edward Snowden revelations about the NSA, GCHQ and international data gathering and sharing came out in 2013, the world has been trying to figure out the right balance between privacy and security. To that end, the European Commission has been in talks with U.S. representatives to renegotiate “safe …

Theresa May will need to go back to the drawing board is she wants to try and force through the controversial Communications Draft Bill, otherwise known as the Snooper's Charter, as a High Court judge has ruled it unlawful in its current guise. The piece of legislation was said to …

In the aftermath of revelations that the USA spent half a decade spying on France's presidents and members of its cabinet, discovering phone call meta data and occasionally content, many French politicians have made public statements condemning the actions. Although many suspect little will happen behind the scenes due to the …

Apparently not content with snooping on the smartphone of the German chancellor Angela Merkel, the NSA also spent over half a decade spying on the last three French presidents, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande between 2006 and 2012, according to some newly leaked Wikileaks documents. Titled, “Espionnage Élysée”, they show …

Earlier this month, we learned that hackers – possibly from China – had infiltrated the White House Office of Personnel Management and had copied documents on millions of government employees. While there were concerns that financial and employment data, possibly even security clearance information had been compromised, it's also shed …

Members of the British intelligence community, including MI6, GCHQ and the Royal Navy took aim at Edward Snowden last week, calling him a traitor and suggesting that by revealing secretive CIA documents, he put the lives of British and American spies at risk. It was even claimed that due to …

Whoever said talking too much was a bad thing? Thanks to unending debates, filibusters and a growing unease at the US government's willingness to spy on its own citizens, the clause within the Patriot Act that allowed the NSA to record every phone call made by a member of the …

The phrase, “if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” has been bandied around by terrorism fear mongers, politicians and their supporters for years now. However there are always incidents that prove this way of thinking to be short sighted, like the fact that just last year, …

You probably know by now that the biggest tech companies in the US are currently battling it out with the NSA over data encryption and what the US government should be allowed to access. Since back door access to customer data is clearly out of the question following the Snowden …

China has had a firm grasp on its country's internet for decades, with researchers in the 90's terming its mix of legislation and technological censorship, “The Great Firewall.” On a more aggressive front, it's maintained divisions of the military exclusively for hacking for years now but it may have recently given birth to …

Since the Edward Snowden revelations of 2013, many organisations have been held under the spotlight for their collusion with the NSA and other international intelligence agencies, most notably Google and Microsoft. Facebook was involved too though, which is why a group of over 25,000 Austrians have launched a class action …

One of the biggest revelations in tech in recent years, was that the United States' intelligence agency, the NSA, has spent a lot of time, money and energy recording and storing the digital communications of Americans and foreigners, regardless of criminal activity or intent. This was huge, but it turns …

If you were applying to become the head of the World Trade Organisation, you might expect some scrutiny into your affairs. However, what you might draw the line at is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence agency utilising anti-terror tools to read your emails and potentially give your opponents …

Since the original Edward Snowden revelations came out just over a year and a half ago, it's become very easy to feel despondent about the whole thing. “Of course they're spying,” is almost as often said now in the comment sections of these articles as the “if you have nothing …

It's no secret at this point that every member of the Five Eyes spying network (essentially every English speaking nation) has been snooping on not only their citizens, but everyone else's over the past few years, under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts. Despite this though, new revelations every few months …

In 2013, the United States riled up a lot of people, as Edward Snowden released a bevy of classified NSA documents to the press, which revealed the extent of the spying perpetrated by the NSA and its international contemporaries. However one person it really angered was German chancellor, Angela Merkel, …

If you own a voice activated smart TV from Samsung, there's a good chance it's recorded conversations you've had with people in the same room, whether it was turned on or not. The worst part of that privacy invasion however, is that Samsung has been sending that information to third …

China looks set to turtle up its tech industry in the near future, with the government soon to debate a new draft legislation that would see foreign tech companies need to meet security minimums before being able to sell to Chinese banks. The plan is thought to be to make …