It's been known for a while that Edward Snowden was a systems administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton doing contract work for the NSA when he obtained the documents which he subsequently leaked to the press. But how did he get at these documents? NBC News has an investigations story on "How Snowden did it" which purports to explain.
In 2004, a 22-year-old technology enthusiast named Ladar Levison hatched a venture that fused his passion for open-source software with his belief that privacy was a fundamental right. Using the OpenSSL cryptography library, the Linux-based operating system, and close to 10,000 programming hours, he built what ultimately became Lavabit, an e-mail service that, when used correctly, made it impossible for even him to read the encrypted messages stored on his servers.
New revelations about US spying continue to be released "in dribs and drabs," as President Obama recently complained.
Today's information comes courtesy of Der Spiegel, the Germany weekly magazine. While political discussion in the US has focused on the National Security Agency's deviations from its promise to not gather data on Americans, the international press continues to highlight examples of NSA spying that are perfectly legal, but may well stoke public outrage in other nations.
When someone dines with Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, I'd like to know who pays the tab.
In a contributing article in Forbes, Stanford Center for Internet and Society Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick talks about what it was like to meet the man in charge of the villainized security agency. Over dinner they discussed the NSA's surveillance tactics, document declassifying, and more.
A German government infosec agency has warned that using Windows 8 in conjunction with the Trusted Computing security platform could lead to loss of control over IT solutions for users.
The advice comes from the federal Bundesamt for Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik IT security agency, which issued a German-language document stating that new Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips built into computers working in conjunction Windows 8 put the devices under Microsoft's control, with users having no control over what can and cannot be installed on them.
The National Security Agency may have unintentionally collected as many as 56,000 emails of Americans per year between 2008 and 2011, in a program that a secret US court said may have violated US law and the Constitution.
The once-classified documents were released by US intelligence agencies as part of an unprecedented White House effort to smooth the uproar following revelations by former contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of secret government surveillance programs.
US politicians are expected to retreat from their obsession with spying on citizens after it was revealed that the biggest losers were actually corporations.
Since the so-called Land of the Fee overthrew its lawful king in a French backed terrorist coup, most of the country's major decisions have been made to prop up businesses and corporate culture.
Blogger Pamela Jones will shut down her award-winning legal news website Groklaw following revelations that the NSA is intercepting the world's internet communications.
Jones, also known as PJ, said in a final farewell article that the shutdown of encrypted email provider Lavabit, used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, had prompted her decision to discontinue the site.
In the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA’s domestic surveillance activities, the NSA has recently announced that they plan to get rid of 90% of their system administrators via software automation in order to “improve security.” So far, I’ve mostly seen this piece of news reported and commented on straightforwardly. But it simply doesn’t add up.
Two "security experts" from the British intelligence agency GCHQ have overseen the destruction of hard drives owned by The Guardian, the newspaper that has published leaked NSA documents describing the work of US and UK intelligence agencies.
The revelations are in a column published Monday afternoon by the newspaper's editor, Alan Rusbridger. In it, he describes the escalating concerns of the British government about the leaks given to The Guardian by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
