NSA

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has claimed he taught a course in “cyber-counterintelligence” against China and has access to data on every active operation mounted against the People’s Republic by the US spy agency.

In a lengthy interview with the New York Times, Snowden revealed more about his time at the National Security Agency and addressed US government concerns that Russian or Chinese spies may have compromised the classified documents he pilfered before fleeing to Hong Kong.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Association contractor who leaked secrets about widespread surveillance, has spoken to the press for the first time since getting asylum in Russia. New York Times reporter James Risen talked to the whistleblower through "encrypted online communications" over the course of the last week.

Snowden maintained that his leaks helped, rather than hurt, US security. “The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure,” he told the paper.

The U.S. National Security Agency has repeatedly tried to compromise Tor, the government-funded online anonymity tool, but has had little success, according to a new report in the U.K.'s Guardian.

The volume and level of detail of the classified documents describing government intelligence gathering leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden indicate that he might not have acted alone, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said today.

Part-time fugitive and antivirus software founder John McAfee has a new invention he's working on. After spending some of his time filming a drug-fueled video tutorial to uninstall the antivirus program he helped create, McAfee now believes he can outsmart the NSA. Speaking at the C2SV Technology Conference on Saturday, McAfee unveiled his grand plan to create a "D-Central" gadget that communicates with smartphones, tablets, and laptops to create decentralized networks that can't be accessed by government agencies.

The flood of stories on government spying will not be slowing soon -- in fact the majority of the most important documents detailing how the U.S. National Security Agency collects personal data have not been published yet, journalists from U.K. newspaper The Guardian said on Tuesday.

Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials, an investigation by The New York Times has revealed.

The head of the U.S. Cyber Command had come to talk about the state of cybersecurity in America. But Gen. Keith Alexander, who also directs the National Security Agency, took the offensive, delivering an impassioned defense of NSA practices Wednesday, in the wake of recriminations over the agency's collection and handling of American's phone records.

He also asked government and industry executives, gathered at a cybersecurity summit in Washington, for their support in maintaining the NSA's data-collection and surveillance efforts.

The NSA has released some details of 12 incidents in which analysts used their access to America’s high-tech surveillance infrastructure to spy on girlfriends, boyfriends, and random people they met in social settings. It’s a fascinating look at what happens when the impulse that drives average netizens to look up long-ago ex-lovers on Facebook is mated with the power to fire up a wiretap with a few keystrokes.

Google has begun to encrypt all searches made by users even if they aren't signed in to Google but it reveals the searches to its advertising customers. The search giant appears to be taking advantage of the NSA spying scandal to increase the number of its advertisers.

Danny Sullivan reports:Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks