Since the beginning of June, the public has been privy to an ever-expanding flower of information springing from the NSA tagged with the code name PRISM. This keyword is attached to a program that whistleblower Edward Snowden is said to have been the sole leaker of for reports leading to the Guardian story on the GCHQ and the Washington Post story on the NSA. What lies beneath is a story on the expanding abilities of the NSA beyond their original bounds in international surveillance.
Earlier this week, companies began to seek permission to release the number of government data requests it receives, something that was kicked off by Google with a letter it made public on one of its blogs. It has only been a couple days, but permission has been granted, and both Facebook and Microsoft have posted numbers detailing government requests and the particulars that go with that.
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In case you've somehow missed all the hoopla, the Internet has been in various states of uproar over PRISM and the allegations that several major companies give the government unrestricted access to their servers. Apple, Google, and others have been vocal about such statements, saying they are not true, but that has not stymied the uproar. As such, Google has formally requested permission to reveal FISA requests in its Transparency Report.
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The Obama administration and NSA have been under extreme public fire lately after a report by The Washington Post revealed a project called PRISM, which snowballed into a variety of other leaks and such that revealed what we already knew: the government is spying on Internet users. In retaliation, an Internet trolling operation has been kicked off called "Troll the NSA," which is encouraging Internet users to email and/or call a pre-written script loaded with trigger words.
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Yesterday, it was revealed that a secret court order initiated by the FBI strong-armed Verizon into handing over detailed phone records of millions of US consumers to the NSA. Such an action made it obvious that other activities of a similar nature are likely taking place, something confirmed today by The Washington Post, which says it has acquired a "top-secret document" showing the NSA and FBI pulling detailed content from central servers of nine major US companies.
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According to The Guardian, the National Security Agency is presently mining millions of records from Verizon, which it slapped with a court order back in April. The order was sent in its entirety to the media company by an unspecified source, and details that such records are being handed over to the government without consumer notification every day.
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Apple introduced two-factor authentication (or two-step verification if you'd like to call it that) with iCloud back in March, adding an extra layer of security to its cloud backup system. However, security researchers say that iCloud is still vulnerable to a break-in if your password is stolen.
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Twitter CEO Dick Costolo spoke at the D11 conference today and discussed a wide range of topics involving the social media serivce, including Twitter's new two-factor authentication that they just recently started rolling out. Twitter was one of the few big services to play catch-up with the security feature, and Costolo knows it.
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It seems you can't go a day without hearing a new report about hackers, whether they're of the annoying Twitter-hijacking variety or the more troublesome DDoSing type. Some, however, are more insidious, including the Iranian hackers who are actively attacking the United States' energy industry. Now a leaked government document shows that Chinese hackers have accessed designs for some of the nation's most advanced weapons.
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The Internet-using public is no stranger to off-the-wall plans and ideas to stop the so-called blight of copyrighted content sharing, but a new proposal recently submitted to the government is perhaps unlike any before it in terms of craziness. In a report, the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property proposed many ways piracy can be combated, including infecting alleged violators' computers with malware that can wreck havoc, including and up to destroying the user's computer.
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Unnamed United Stated officials, both current and former, spoke with the folks at the Wall Street Journal, revealing that hackers backed by the Iranian government have ramped up cyberattacks against the US, specifically zeroing in on the control systems that manage the energy industry. Unlike the Chinese hackers who have infiltrated various US companies, the intent behind the Iranian hackers appears to be sabotage.
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As tipped late last month, Twitter has begun rolling out two-factor authentication. This will allow users to require both a password and a verification code that gets sent to them via SMS on their mobile phone. The feature is disabled by default, so you'll need to go into your account settings in order to enable it.
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