Topic: SECURITY - on September 1, 2014 at 3:25:00 PM CEST
Out in the Open: Hackers Build a Skype That’s Not Controlled by Microsoft
The web forum 4chan is known mostly as a place to share juvenile and, to put it mildly, politically incorrect images. But it’s also the birthplace of one of the latest attempts to subvert the NSA’s mass surveillance program.
When whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that full extent of the NSA’s activities last year, members of the site’s tech forum started talking about the need for a more secure alternative to Skype. Soon, they’d opened a chat room to discuss the project and created an account on the code hosting and collaboration site GitHub and began uploading code.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 26, 2014 at 4:51:00 PM CEST
ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google
The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 25, 2014 at 4:45:00 PM CEST
For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.
The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 22, 2014 at 4:12:00 PM CEST
NSA and GCHQ agents 'leak Tor bugs', alleges developer
British and American intelligence agents attempting to hack the "dark web" are being deliberately undermined by colleagues, it has been alleged.
Spies from both countries have been working on finding flaws in Tor, a popular way of anonymously accessing "hidden" sites.
But the team behind Tor says other spies are tipping them off, allowing them to quickly fix any vulnerabilities.
The agencies declined to comment.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 21, 2014 at 5:38:00 PM CEST
Geheimes Dokument: Bundeskriminalamt darf FinFisher/FinSpy nicht einsetzen, versucht einfach neue Version nochmal
Der Staatstrojaner FinFisher/FinSpy durfte vom Bundeskriminalamt nicht eingesetzt werden, weil er gegen deutsche Gesetze verstößt. Das geht aus einer geheimen Sachstandsanfrage der Wiesbadener Behörde hervor, die wir veröffentlichen. Statt das Projekt aufzugeben, testet man einfach nochmal eine neue Version.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 21, 2014 at 5:31:00 PM CEST
Forscher schmuggeln Waffen und Sprengstoff durch Nacktscanner
Untersuchung zeigt: Teure Geräte lassen sich leicht austricksen - Konnten auch Malware einschleusen
Immer wieder haben Sicherheitsexperten in den vergangenen Jahren davor gewarnt, dass die mittlerweile vielerorts eingesetzten Body Scanner im besten Fall eine psychologische Maßnahme sind - im schlimmsten Fall eine zweifelhafte Querfinanzierung der jeweiligen Hersteller. Die “Nacktscanner” würden keinerlei zusätzliche Sicherheit bieten, und seien leicht auszutricksen, so die Behauptung. Die Hersteller widersprechen solchen Darstellungen natürlich vehement.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 16, 2014 at 5:00:00 PM CEST
BND überwacht seit Jahren die Türkei
Der Bundesnachrichtendienst führt den Nato-Partner Türkei als offizielles Aufklärungsziel. Neben Hillary Clinton hörte der Dienst auch John Kerry mindestens einmal ab.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 16, 2014 at 4:59:00 PM CEST
Watch a Cat Video, Get Hacked: the Death of Clear-Text
Citizen Lab released new research today on a targeted exploitation technique used by state actors involving "network injection appliances" installed at ISPs. These devices can target and intercept unencrypted YouTube traffic and replace it with malicious code that gives the operator control over the system or installs a surveillance backdoor. One of the researchers writes, "many otherwise well-informed people think they have to do something wrong, or stupid, or insecure to get hacked—like clicking on the wrong attachments, or browsing malicious websites...many of these commonly held beliefs are not necessarily true." This technique is largely designed for targeted attacks, so it's likely most of us will be safe for now — but just one more reminder to use https.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 15, 2014 at 4:36:00 PM CEST
NSA/GCHQ: Das HACIENDA-Programm zur Kolonisierung des Internet
Portscans sind ein bekanntes Tool und werden regelmäßig eingesetzt, um Schwachstellen in lokalen Systemen zu finden. Neue, als streng geheim klassifizierte Dokumente des britischen Geheimdienstes General Communication Headquarter (GCHQ), die heise online exklusiv vorliegen, zeigen jetzt, dass Geheimdienste das Scannen offener Ports ganzer Länder (Folie 1 in der Bilderstrecke) als Standardtool einsetzen.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 15, 2014 at 4:34:00 PM CEST
Großer Bundestrojaner ist “einsatzbereit”, kleiner Bundestrojaner wird noch eine Zeitlang ausprobiert
Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) verfügt über mindestens drei verschiedene Trojaner-Programme für unterschiedliche Zwecke. Dies geht aus den Antworten auf mehrere parlamentarische Anfragen der letzten zwei Wochen hervor. Es handelt sich demnach um ein Modell zur “Online-Durchsuchung”, eines zur “Quellen-Telekommunikationsüberwachung” sowie die “Übergangslösung” der britisch-deutschen Firma Gamma International.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 13, 2014 at 5:15:00 PM CEST
Blackphone goes to Def Con and gets hacked—sort of
When the Blackphone team arrived at Def Con last week, they knew they were stepping into a lion’s den. In fact, that's exactly why they were there. The first generation Blackphone from SGP Technologies has been shipping for just over a month, and the company’s delegation to DefCon—including Silent Circle Chief Technology Officer Jon Callas and newly hired SGP Technologies Chief Security Officer Dan Ford—was looking to both reach a natural customer base and get help with further locking down the device.
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Topic: SECURITY - on August 13, 2014 at 5:10:00 PM CEST
Edward Snowden: The Untold Story
The message arrives on my “clean machine,” a MacBook Air loaded only with a sophisticated encryption package. “Change in plans,” my contact says. “Be in the lobby of the Hotel ______ by 1 pm. Bring a book and wait for ES to find you.” ¶ ES is Edward Snowden, the most wanted man in the world. For almost nine months, I have been trying to set up an interview with him—traveling to Berlin, Rio de Janeiro twice, and New York multiple times to talk with the handful of his confidants who can arrange a meeting. Among other things, I want to answer a burning question: What drove Snowden to leak hundreds of thousands of top-secret documents, revelations that have laid bare the vast scope of the government's domestic surveillance programs? In May I received an email from his lawyer, ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, confirming that Snowden would meet me in Moscow and let me hang out and chat with him for what turned out to be three solid days over several weeks. It is the most time that any journalist has been allowed to spend with him since he arrived in Russia in June 2013. But the finer details of the rendezvous remain shrouded in mystery. I landed in Moscow without knowing precisely where or when Snowden and I would actually meet. Now, at last, the details are set.
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