Vote Spear at Pride 2014
Vote Spear marched in 2014 Pride to support Trans Rights and freeing the heroic Chelsea Manning. Jess Spear of Socialist Alternative is running against Democrat Frank Chopp to represent the...
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Vote Spear at Pride 2014 - Video
Application was made a month before his one-year asylum was due to expire Comes as mystery surrounds his one-month stay in Hong Kong Snowden earlier said he had applied for asylum in several other countries
By Steve Hopkins
Published: 05:35 EST, 1 July 2014 | Updated: 09:13 EST, 1 July 2014
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Whistleblower Edward Snowden has filed an official petition to extend his asylum in Russia for another year.
Snowden, who fled to Moscow on June 23, made the request to The Federal Migration Service a month before his current one-year asylum was due to expire.
If granted, Snowden, 31, will be able to remain in Russia for another year, according to The Moscow Times.
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Edward Snowden 'applies to extend asylum in Russia for another year'
WASHINGTON: America's top spy agency was authorised by a US court in 2010 to carry out surveillance on the BJP along with five other political organisations across the globe, including Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan Peoples Party, according to a classified document.
BJP figures in the list of foreign political parties along with Lebanon's Amal, the Bolivarian Continental Coordinator of Venezuela, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian National Salvation Front and the Pakistan Peoples Party for whom the National Security Agency (NSA) had sought permission to carry out surveillance, says the document made public by The Washington Post yesterday.
The document lists the 193 foreign governments as well as foreign factions and other entities that were part of a 2010 certification approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The list includes India.
"These are the entities about which the NSA may conduct surveillance, for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence," the paper said, citing documents provided to it by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
It said each year a new certification must be approved by the court to permit such surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.
"Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information 'concerning' all but four countries, according to top-secret documents," The Post reported.
The four countries are Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The certification of surveillance also includes other international organisations like World Bank, IMF, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The NSA is not necessarily targeting all the countries or organizations identified in the certification, the affidavits and an accompanying exhibit; it has only been given authority to do so," The Post said.
Without specifically responding to questions related to surveillance on India and the BJP in particular, NSA spokesperson Vanee' Vines told PTI that the agency collects foreign intelligence based on specific intelligence requirements set by the President, the Director of National Intelligence, and departments and agencies through the National Intelligence Priorities Framework.
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US authorised NSA to spy on BJP in 2010: Edward Snowden
Freedom Attacked By Overbearing Government
David shifts his coverage to the headlines covering the latest on NSA spying on private citizens, the P.R.I.S.M. Program that started the scandal and what we can expect for the future of our...
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Freedom Attacked By Overbearing Government - Video
The Bharatiya Janata Party was one of the six non-US political parties across the globe that the National Security Agency received official permission in 2010 to covertly spy upon, according to the latest document released by former NSA contractor-turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.
According to The Washington Post, the other five political parties that the NSA had authority to spy upon were Lebanon's Amal which has links to Hezbollah, the Bolivarian Continental Coordinator of Venezuela with links to FARC, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and National Salvation Front as well as the Pakistan People's Party.
The report comes as preparations are underway for a summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama in Washington in September-end this year after nearly a decade America denied Modi a visa and blacklisted him.
The US denied Modi a visa in 2005 over the Gujarat riots, in which over a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
Modi was the Gujarat chief minister when the riots occurred and the US state department invoked a little-known law passed in 1998 that makes foreign officials responsible for "severe violations of religious freedom" ineligible for visas.
Read: Waiting for Greenwald - why India can't stay mute on NSA spying
After the swearing-in of Modi, who led the BJP to a spectacular victory in the general election, Obama in a message vowed to work closely together with the Indian PM "for years to come".
Obama was quick to acknowledge Modi's "resounding" victory in the general elections and extended an invitation to him to visit Washington.
According to top-secret documents Snowden published through the Post on Monday, the US' Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court gave the NSA broad leeway in conducting surveillance upon not only these six political parties but also a list of 193 foreign governments including India and only four countries were off-limits under this programme.
"The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries - Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand," the Post reported on Monday.
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US spy agency bagged court approval to spy on BJP, India ...
Though the Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court often splits 5-4 on partisan and ideological issues, a consensus is emerging against the governments electronic intrusion on personal privacy, which could portend trouble for NSA spying, says Marjorie Cohn.
By Marjorie Cohn
In one of the most significant Fourth Amendment rulings ever handed down by the Supreme Court, all nine justices agreed in an opinion involving two companion cases, Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, that police generally need a warrant before reading data on the cell phone of an arrestee.
This decision may well presage how the Court will rule on the constitutionality of the National Security Agency (NSA) metadata collection program when that issue inevitably comes before it.
U.S. Supreme Court
There has always been a preference for search warrants when the police conduct a Fourth Amendment search or seizure. But, over the years, the Court has carved out certain exceptions to the warrant requirement, including the search incident to a lawful arrest.
The 1969 case of Chimel v. California defined the parameters of this exception. Upon a lawful arrest, police can search the person of the arrestee and areas within his immediate control from which he could secure a weapon or destroy evidence.
Four years later, in United States v. Robinson, the Court confirmed that the search incident to a lawful arrest is a bright-line rule. These types of searches will not be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If the arrest is lawful, a search incident to it needs no further justification. It does not matter whether the officer is concerned in a given case that the arrestee might be armed or destroy evidence.
In Riley/Wurie, the Court declined to apply the search incident to a lawful arrest exception to searches of data contained on an arrestees cell phone. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court that the dual rationales for applying the exception to the search of physical objects protecting officers and preventing destruction of evidence do not apply to the digital content on cell phones: There are no comparable risks when the search is of digital data.
Moreover, [m]odern cell phones, as a category, Roberts noted, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse. Responding to the governments assertion that a search of cell phone data is materially indistinguishable from searches of physical items, Roberts quipped, That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.
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Does Cell-Phone Case Imperil NSA Spying?
Do you throw your credit card statements in the trash? How about documents that include your phone number, social security number, address, and date of birth? No, you shred the papers first, to make it difficult for others to read.
The same goes for sensitive information stored on a computer. It needs protection. Data encryption means youve essentially shredded it. No one can read it. But luckily with computers, we can unshred our data back to its original state, and then shred it again. We can do this as many times as we like. And unlike paper, your shredded data cant be pieced together, at least not without knowing the proper key or password.
So why does anyone need file encryption software? Information that is private can be embarrassing if released to the public, hence the word private. In addition, losing personal information to the wrong person (stolen laptop) could result in identity theft. Lots of worry, lots of stress, and none of it necessary, should we always choose to protect our sensitive data.
On this site, you'll find articles on encryption software, and comprehensive reviews to help you make an informed decision on which package is right for you. At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.
It must be easy to use and provide 100% reliability of data. Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate the software:
Ease of Use It should be easy to install, and easy to use. If it is built correctly, the user will rarely need to consult the help file, or look for support on the companys website. This is a true indication that the application was created with the customer in mind.
Data Security It should have the following security features at a minimum: A strong encryption elgorithm (at least 256 bit AES or equivalent), shredding of original files after encryption, 100% reliability of data after encryption/decryption and a password strength meter to insure a strong password.
Feature Set The saying You get what you pay for is quite often true. In many cases, however, the average user probably only needs a few features to fulfill his needs. The more bells and whistles means the more youll pay for that extra unneeded bloat, i.e., do you really need biometric ID verification? At a minimum, when looking for encryption software, the following features should be included: An uncrippled trial version so that you can fully test the program using your configurations, speedy encryption/decryption of files and folders, context menu options - ability to right click on any file folder and encrypt/decrypt and portability can you encrypt/decrypt your files on the go, without needing the main program?
Help and Documentation Encrypting your files and folders neednt be difficult. The internals of the software that convert your data to unintelligible 1s and 0s do all the hard work. Other than that, the interface should give you simple choices to make, and be self explanatory. But sometimes we need help. At a minimum, any software package should have these help options: A built in help file with lots of graphics, easy to read instructions, the ability to search and so on; built-in or online tutorials; a knowledge base or a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and email support.
So lets not delay any further. Your data needs protecting. And what better way than with Folder Lock.
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TopTenREVIEWS - Encryption Software Review 2014 | Best ...
Microsoft has added encryption safeguards to the Outlook.com webmail service and to the OneDrive cloud storage service, in part to better protect these consumer products from government snoops.
Our goal is to provide even greater protection for data across all the great Microsoft services you use and depend on every day. This effort also helps us reinforce that governments use appropriate legal processes, not technical brute force, if they want access to that data, Matt Thomlinson, vice president, Trustworthy Computing Security, at Microsoft wrote in a blog post.
The move follows similar ones from other cloud computing providers. For example, Google announced end-to-end encryption for Gmail in April, including protection for email messages while they travel among Google data centers. It recently announced similar encryption for its Google Drive cloud storage service.
Its not clear from Microsofts announcement whether the encryption protection it announced covers Outlook.com messages and OneDrive files as they travel within Microsoft data centers. Its also not clear what, if any, encryption OneDrive and Outlook.com have had until now. Microsoft didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cloud computing providers like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and many others have been rattled by disclosures from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden regarding government snooping into online communications, due to the effect on their consumer and business customers.
As a result, these companies have been busy boosting encryption on their systems, while also lobbying the U.S. government to stop the stealthy and widespread monitoring of Internet services.
In December, Microsoft announced it would roll out in the coming 12 months sweeping improvements in encryption across its consumer and enterprise cloud services, including Outlook.com, its Azure platform, Office 365 and other products. Tuesdays announcement is part of that ongoing effort.
Brad Smith, Microsofts general counsel, wrote then that we are especially alarmed by recent allegations in the press of a broader and concerted effort by some governments to circumvent online security measuresand in our view, legal processes and protectionsin order to surreptitiously collect private customer data. In particular, recent press stories have reported allegations of governmental interception and collectionwithout search warrants or legal subpoenasof customer data as it travels between customers and servers or between company data centers in our industry.
Smith went on to say that, if true, the situation threatens to seriously undermine the security and privacy of online communications, turning government snooping into an advanced persistent threat alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks.
The company said Tuesday that inbound and outbound mail from Outlook.com is now protected with Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption as it travels to and from Microsoft email systems. A caveat is that if theres another email service provider involved in the exchange it must also have implemented TLS on its end. Microsoft has been working with other large, international email service providers on efforts to get TLS more broadly adopted.
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Microsoft boosts anti-snooping protection in Outlook.com, OneDrive
Microsoft has pulled back the curtain on its implementation of tougher encryption standards for Web-based email and some cloud services, the company announced Tuesday.
In the works for more than six months, Microsoft has now activated Transport Layer Security encryption (TLS) for its webmail services at Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, Live.com, and MSN.com. This means it will be significantly harder for email originating from and being sent to a Microsoft account to be spied on, as long as the connecting email service also uses TLS.
Matt Thomlinson, vice president of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing division, said that this work is part of a "comprehensive engineering effort to strengthen encryption."
"This effort also helps us reinforce that governments use appropriate legal processes, not technical brute force, if they want access to that data," he said.
Although Thomlinson didn't specify the origins of this work, Microsoft's heightened encryption efforts follow an October 2013 report that the NSA had been spying on Internet giants in a program called Muscular. The report was based on documents leaked by one-time National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Microsoft's move also comes just a few weeks after a well-publicized Google webmail report that painted Redmond in less than flattering colors. Google scored Microsoft, along with Comcast and Apple, as webmail providers with inadequate levels of encryption to protect their users' email.
Comcast and Microsoft representatives told CNET at the time of Google's report that their companies were in the process of implementing TLS for their webmail services. Apple did not return a request for comment.
Microsoft also has activated Perfect Forward Secrecy encryption (PFS) for its cloud storage service OneDrive. The OneDrive website, OneDrive mobile apps, and OneDrive syncing tools will now all use the tougher PFS encryption standard, which protects user confidentiality even when an third-party is eavesdropping on the network.
Finally, Microsoft has opened a "transparency center" at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., where governments can review Microsoft source code for "key products" to confirm that no hidden backdoors have been added to the software. Microsoft has not revealed which of its products will be available for review.
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Microsoft flips switch on new webmail encryption
6 hours ago Jul. 1, 2014 - 8:09 AM PDT
Microsoftis nowencrypting messages flowing between its own Outlook.com mail service and third-party mail providers using Transport Layer Security, and has also enabledPerfect Forward Security in Outlook.com and OneDrive file storage. Perfect Forward Secrecy usesa different encryption key for each connection, according to a Microsoft Technet blog.
TLS support means that mail flowing into and out of Outlook.com accounts is encrypted and thus better protected as it travels between Microsoft and other email providers, as long as those other email vendorsalso support TLS, wrote Matt Thomlinson, VP of Microsofts trustworthy computing security group.
Microsoft rival Google last month called for other email providerstomake use of Perfect Forward Secrecy technology so that messages areprotected from theirpoint of creation to theirdestination.
Thomlinson also said Microsoft worked withinternational mail providers including Deutsche Telekom, Yandex and Mail.Ru to test and help ensure that mail stays encrypted in transit to and from each email service.
Ever since Edward Snowdens disclosures about the U.S. National Security Agencysnooping on cloud customer data, U.S. cloud providers have been falling all over themselves to prove they are good stewards of customer information.
Microsofts general counsel Brad Smith, who spoke on the topic at Gigaomsrecent Structure Conference, has been in the forefront of that fight.
These companiessayunchecked (and secretive) government data gathering is bad for their businesses and argue that its also bad for the U.S. in general. The NSA disclosures have given non-U.S.-basedcloud providers a powerful marketing tool to argue that German citizens (or companies) should stick to German providers for their cloud computing needs; ditto France, and so on.
NowU.S. tech powers likeMicrosoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google and so on have to showthat they are prepared to fight even fight the U.S. government, if need be to protect customer data.
At Structure, HP EVP Bill Veghtesaid NSA-gate had hurt cloud adoption in China, which is building infrastructure like gangbusters while U.S. vendors have to deal with spying concerns. Its just a bummer, he said.
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Encryption race continues as Microsoft bulks up protection for email and file storage