Edward Snowden’s Passport, Political Asylum and Related Issues News Conference March 25, 2014 – Video


Edward Snowden #39;s Passport, Political Asylum and Related Issues News Conference March 25, 2014
Video of News Conference: March 25, 2014 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Ray McGovern, Coleen Rowley and Norman Solomon spoke at this news con...

By: paulydc

Originally posted here:
Edward Snowden's Passport, Political Asylum and Related Issues News Conference March 25, 2014 - Video

White House cyber chief: Snowden damage will be felt for decades

Damage to U.S. national security caused by NSA contractor Edward Snowden will take decades to repair, the White House official in charge of cyber security said Friday.

Make no mistake: We are going to be dealing with the fallout from that for all of your careers, and the impact that that has had on our national security will reverberate for decades, Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president for cyber security, told Naval Academy midshipmen.

Daniel, in a speech to the academys Center for Cyber Security Studies, also said the Obama administration has adopted a passive approach to offensive and retaliatory cyber attacks against nation states and criminal hackers caught attacking U.S. networks. Cyber attacks are a tool of last resort after diplomacy and law enforcement means are tried, he said.

We are going to prioritize network defense and law enforcement before conducting offensive cyber attacks, Daniel said in a wide-ranging speech.

The presidential cyber security official also said the administration opposes placing control of the Internet under foreign governments, despite a recent announcement that the federal government will give up authority over the Internet name server group.

Instead, the administration favors what Daniel called a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance involving both governments and the private sector that would protect free speech and dissidents.

Snowden, currently under the protection of the Russian government, stole an estimated 1.7 million classified NSA documents using his access as a computer administrator and by fooling several NSA employees into providing their passwords.

Snowden compromised sensitive accesses used by the National Security Agency to conduct electronic spying, along with techniques and tools that are no longer available to us, Daniel said, without elaborating.

Daniel said he has spent a huge amount of time over the past year trying to figure out how to plug the holes that Mr. Snowden revealed that we have in the security of our classified networks.

Other classified NSA systems are being rebuilt and the Snowden affair also has undermined efforts to focus on other pressing cyber security and national security issues, he said.

Originally posted here:
White House cyber chief: Snowden damage will be felt for decades

Encryption business booms as privacy, security concerns rise

By: Agence France-Presse March 29, 2014 10:20 AM

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

NEW YORK - Investors are pumping millions of dollars into encryption as unease about data security drives a rising need for ways to keep unwanted eyes away from personal and corporate information.

Major data breaches at Target and other retailers that have made data security a boardroom issue at companies large and small.

And stunning revelations of widespread snooping by US intelligence agencies have also rattled companies and the public.

For venture capital, that has opened up a new area of growth in the tech business.

In February, Google Ventures led a $25.5 million round of venture funding for Atlanta-based Ionic Security, a three-year old company that works in encryption, which scrambles data before it is shipped or stored.

Other encryption companies, including Toronto-based PerspecSys and San Jose, California-based CipherCloud, have announced major fundings.

The funding rush could hearken a "golden age" of encryption, as one expert puts it. But the industry also faces barriers to a tool that until recently was not a hot commodity.

Concerns about encryption range from practical challenges, such as the difficulty users have to search their encoded data, to government opposition towards encryption.

Continued here:
Encryption business booms as privacy, security concerns rise

Ask Slashdot: How To Handle Unfixed Linux Accessibility Bugs?

dotancohen (1015143) writes "It is commonly said that open source software is preferable because if you need something changed, you can change it yourself. Well, I am not an Xorg developer and I cannot maintain a separate Xorg fork. Xorg version 1.13.1 introduced a bug which breaks the "Sticky Keys" accessibility option. Thus, handicapped users who rely on the feature cannot use Xorg-based systems with the affected versions and are stuck on older software versions. Though all pre-bug Linux distros are soon scheduled for retirement, there seems to be no fix in sight. Should disabled users stick with outdated, vulnerable, and unsupported Linux distros or should we move to OS-X / Windows?

The prospect of changing my OS, applications, and practices due to such an ostensibly small issue is frightening. Note that we are not discussing 'I don't like change' but rather 'this unintentional change is incompatible with my physical disability.' Thus this is not a case of every change breaks someone's workflow."

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Ask Slashdot: How To Handle Unfixed Linux Accessibility Bugs?