A US reporter for National Public Radio found that NSA-style broad surveillance enabled by a pen-testing device and software crunching picked up on his research (in spite of Google’s default search encryption), intercepted uncut interview tape, ferreted out his interview subjects’ phone numbers and email addresses, and more. Still think there’s nobody out there interested in your boring data points?
Tag Archives: surveillance
Feds swoop in, snatch mobile phone tracking records away from ACLU
After the Feds seized the surveillance records, US Marshals then moved the physical records 320 miles away, meaning the ACLU wouldn’t be able to learn how, and how extensively, police use snooping devices.
Google says half of email is sent unencrypted
It’s been an encryption-intensive start to the week – good news for all of us who are wary of snooping. 
NSA facial recognition program scours web for images to identify suspects
The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting millions of images from the web and storing them in a database that can be mined by facial recognition software for identifying surveillance targets, a new report says.
Say hello to your vending machine – it might be watching you!
You walk up, ready to quench your thirst with sucrose syrup, and the beverage vending machine decides to take your photo, guess your age, discern your gender and then target-market at you.
Yes, your smartphone camera can be used to spy on you
A researcher claims to have written an Android app that takes photos and videos using the device camera while the screen is turned off – so you wouldn’t even know the camera was spying on you.
Snapchat, AT&T, Amazon = worst privacy protectors says EFF
Snapchat makes its debut on the list with the lowest ranking of all when it comes to who’s got our backs. The good news is that many companies have made vast strides in criteria including publishing transparency reports about government data requests and fighting for users’ data privacy rights both in the courts and in Congress. 
Apple releases OS X Mavericks 10.9.3, repeats last month’s security updates
Apple just issued a Security Advisory for OS X Mavericks 10.9.3. Don’t get too excited – from a security point of view, it seems to be nothing more than last month’s fixes all over again. So, at betwen 0.5GB and 1GB to download, do you need it?
NSA intercepts routers, servers to slip in backdoors for overseas surveillance
US intelligence has been covertly implanting interception tools into US networking equipment heading overseas, alleges Glenn Greenwald. 
US House committee unanimously votes to rein in NSA, end bulk data collection
The USA Freedom Act is a watered-down version of an earlier bill – it’s been re-dubbed the “Freedumb Act” – and it’s seen as a weakened compromise between the intelligence community and those concerned with people’s rights not to be snooped on. But hey, privacy groups say, it’s still a step in the right direction. 