Cryptocurrency: Get Mining!
Don #39;t just sit there bit-curious about the technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. Come out, jump in, learn by doing. Join Project 11 #39;s Reed Sturtevant in this hands-on digital...
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Cryptocurrency: Get Mining! - Video
LEVIN: Who #39;s Done More Damage To This Nation, Edward Snowden Or Barack Obama?
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LEVIN: Who's Done More Damage To This Nation, Edward Snowden Or Barack Obama? - Video
Edward Snowden Alleged NSA Leaker Lashes Out at President Obama Threatens More Leaks
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Edward Snowden Alleged NSA Leaker Lashes Out at President Obama Threatens More Leaks - Video
Edward Snowden NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden:
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American computer specialist, former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and former contractor for the National Security Agency . #39;I don #39;t want to live...
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Edward Snowden NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: - Video
Edward Snowden. Photo: Barton Gellman for The Washington Post, via Getty
It was December 11, 2012, and in a small art space behind a furniture store in Honolulu, NSA contractor Edward Snowden was working to subvert the machinery of global surveillance.
Snowden was not yet famous. His blockbuster leaks were still six months away, but the man destined to confront world leaders on a global stage was addressing a much smaller audience that Sunday evening. He was leading a local Crypto Party, teaching less than two dozen Hawaii residents how to encrypt their hard drives and use the internet anonymously.
He introduced himself as Ed, says technologist and writer Runa Sandvik, who co-presented with Snowden at the event, and spoke about the experience for the first time with WIRED. We talked for a bit before everything started. And I remember asking where he worked or what he did, and he didnt really want to tell.
The grassroots crypto party movement began in 2011 with a Melbourne, Australia-based activist who goes by Asher Wolf. The idea was for technologists versed in software like Tor and PGP to get together with activists, journalists, and anyone else with a real-life need for those tools and show them the ropes. By the end of 2012, thered been more than 1,000 such parties in countries around the world, by Wolfs count. They were non-political and open to anyone.
Dont exclude anybody, Wolf says. Invite politicians. Invite people you wouldnt necessarily expect. It was about being practical. By the end of the session, they should have Tor installed and be able to use OTR and PGP.
The site of Edward Snowdens December, 2012 Crypto Party. Image: Google Street View
That Snowden organized such an event himself while still an NSA contract worker speaks volumes about his motives. Since the Snowden revelations began in June 2013, the whistleblower has been accused in editorial pages, and even the halls of Congress, of being a spy for China or Russia. A recent Wall Street Journal column argues that Snowden might have been working for the Russians and Chinese at the same time. [O]nly a handful of the secrets had anything to do with domestic surveillance by the government and most were of primary value to an espionage operation.
For the most part, these attacks have bounced harmlessly off Snowden, deflected by the Teflon of his well-managed public appearances and the self-evident risk and sacrifice he took on. One notable exception came last month, when Snowden submitted a video question to a televised town hall with Russian president Vladamir Putin; his question to Putin about Russias surveillance apparatus came across as a softball, and for a moment Snowden looked like a prop in Putins stage show.
But regardless of what you think of his actions, Snowdens intentions are harder to doubt when you know that even before he leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to expose the surveillance world, he spent two hours calmly teaching 20 of his neighbors how to protect themselves from it. Even as he was thinking globally, he was acting locally. Its like coming home to find the director of Greenpeace starting a mulch pit in your backyard.
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Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii
A group of technology companies, including Facebook Inc. (FB), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL), said the bill U.S. lawmakers plan to vote on today to limit National Security Agency spying doesnt go far enough.
The legislation has moved in the wrong direction, the Reform Government Surveillance coalition said in a statement yesterday. The coalition formed last year in an effort to distance Internet companies from perceptions that they willingly cooperated with government surveillance programs.
Objections by the companies, which also include Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), come after Republicans in the House of Representatives negotiated in private with President Barack Obamas administration to alter the legislation. Its the only bill lawmakers from both major parties have been able to agree on to curb NSA powers almost a year after spying was exposed in documents leaked by former U.S. contractor Edward Snowden.
The latest draft opens up an unacceptable loophole that could enable the bulk collection of Internet users data, the coalition said. While it makes important progress, we cannot support this bill as currently drafted and urge Congress to close this loophole to ensure meaningful reform.
Protesters march to the U.S. Capitol to voice opposition to government surveillance of online activity and phone calls, on Oct. 26, 2013. Close
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Protesters march to the U.S. Capitol to voice opposition to government surveillance of online activity and phone calls, on Oct. 26, 2013.
The bill, H.R. 3361, is expected by congressional leaders to have enough votes to pass the Republican-controlled House. The opposition from the companies, while not helpful, wont doom the bill, said Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Obviously they have some influence but I dont see that as a deal killer, McCaul said in an interview.
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Facebook to Google Say NSA Spying Bill is Unacceptable
Carefully crafted legislation that would end the government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records is under fire after the White House requested last-minute changes that critics say would water down its protections.
A year after Americans learned from National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the NSA was secretly collecting vast amounts of telephone and email data, the House is preparing to vote this week on legislation intended to curtail domestic spying.
Although the bill is likely to pass Thursday, the changes hammered out in secretive negotiations over the last few days between the Obama administration and leaders on Capitol Hill have led some privacy groups and civil libertarians to withdraw their support. They warn that the revisions, including changes to what sort of government data searches would be permitted, could provide loopholes that would allow massive data collection to continue.
"I think it's ironic that a bill that was intended to increase transparency was secretly changed," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, which crafted the original legislation. "And it was altered in worrisome ways." She said she was unsure how she would vote.
So far, the changes appear modest enough to avoid tanking the bipartisan support needed for passage. But meddling with the accord poses inherent risks in a divided Congress where lawmakers have grown increasingly wary of intelligence operations. An unusual political alliance of liberal Democrats and small-government conservatives has thwarted earlier efforts to expand spy agencies' reach into Americans' private lives.
Many of those lawmakers remained undecided Wednesday, suggesting the final vote could be closer than the White House would like.
The White House insisted Wednesday that the changes were intended to meet the shared goal of the president and Congress to clip the vast collection of bulk "metadata," while ensuring against new directives that would impede routine investigations or efforts to combat terrorism.
Administration officials argued in the closed discussions, often held in the third-floor Capitol suite of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), that the bill's language originally approved by the judiciary and intelligence committees was drafted too narrowly and could limit non-bulk data collection operations.
"There was no effort to soften the ban on bulk collection," said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. "Our engagement was to ensure that the language of the USA Freedom Act would not have any unintended consequences for routine individual investigations."
Under the proposed legislation, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies would no longer be allowed to collect from telephone companies vast amounts of so-called metadata, including the times and lengths of calls but not the contents of conversations. Instead they would need to narrow searches by making "specific selection" requests based on certain criteria.
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White House's late changes to NSA spying bill shake support
AP
German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told journalists in Washington that Holder has accepted an invitation from Berlin to explain how the US would curb spying on foreign nationals overseas.
"We will have this discussion together in Germany," he said.
The US Justice Department did not immediately confirm the trip and de Maiziere said that Holder's visit would not take place "before the summer recess."
In a speech in January, US President Barack Obama said he had taken "the unprecedented step of extending certain protections that we have for the American people to people overseas."
Obama directed the intelligence community and Holder to develop "safeguards" for the privacy of foreign citizens.
After meeting Holder on Wednesday, de Maiziere said details are still scarce, stressing that "no decision" has been made in Washington on what restrictions would apply to spying overseas.
But he welcomed plans to end the NSA practice of scooping up metadata from US telecoms companies, which will also apply to foreign citizens if their communications is routed through the US.
"It's going to be a long path, but I see some progress," he said.
Germans were outraged the revelations last year by rogue intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, of the vast surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency (NSA).
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Eric Holder To Discuss NSA Spying Scandal In Germany
May 22, 2014
United States Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Justice Department and the reform of government surveillance programs, in Washington in this January 29, 2014 file photo. Reuters pic, May 22, 2014. US Attorney General Eric Holder will travel to Germany to discuss privacy concerns after the NSA spying scandal damaged relations between the two allies, Germany said yesterday.
German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told journalists in Washington that Holder has accepted an invitation from Berlin to explain how the US would curb spying on foreign nationals overseas.
"We will have this discussion together in Germany," he said.
The US Justice Department did not immediately confirm the trip and de Maiziere said that Holder's visit would not take place "before the summer recess."
In a speech in January, US President Barack Obama said he had taken "the unprecedented step of extending certain protections that we have for the American people to people overseas."
Obama directed the intelligence community and Holder to develop "safeguards" for the privacy of foreign citizens.
After meeting Holder yesterday, de Maiziere said details are still scarce, stressing that "no decision" has been made in Washington on what restrictions would apply to spying overseas.
But he welcomed plans to end the NSA practice of scooping up metadata from US telecoms companies, which will also apply to foreign citizens if their communications is routed through the US.
"It's going to be a long path, but I see some progress," he said.
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us_general_eric_holder_surveillance_reuters.jpg
Various instant messaging services are on the verge of blocking unencrypted chat messages thanks to the roll out of a XMPP upgrade that has been in the pipeline for some time.
The XMPP Standard Foundation confirmed that the 70 services that are part of the public XMPP network turned on mandatory encryption for client-to-server and server-to-server connections.
"Today, a large number of services on the public XMPP network permanently turned on mandatory encryption for client-to-server and server-to-server connections. This is the first step toward making the XMPP network more secure for all users",Peter Saint-Andre, the technologist behind the initiative, toldThe Register.
XMPP was first used by the Jabber instant messaging service and is now implemented, in part, by almost all of the worlds popular IM services, and one signatory company, Prosodical, admitted that the pledge was a prerequisite for other security changes to take place.
"While XMPP is an open distributed network, obviously no single entity can mandate encryption for the whole network -- but as a group we are moving in the right direction", stated a companyblog post. "This commitment to encrypted connections is only the first step toward more secure communication using XMPP, and does not obviate the need for technologies supporting end-to-end encryption such as Off-the-Record Messaging, strong authentication, channel binding, secure DNS, server identity checking, and secure service delegation".
A similar initiative entitled Reset the Net is also moving in a similar direction as the coalition of privacy groups looks to persuade further implementation of SSL, HTTP Strict Transport Security [HSTS], Perfect Forward Secrecy [PFS] and end-to-end encryption.
The movement in the direction of mandatory encryption has been rolling along ever since widespread National Security Agency (NSA) snooping and spying was revealed by renowned whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock
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XMPP-based instant messaging services embrace encryption