Build a better mousetrap, and someone will use it to kill humans. It seems inevitable that technological advances always seem to come with misuses or some kind of maluse. The technology isn't bad, just its use.
Somewhere in Russia an eavesdropper is operating a network of wiretapped nodes at the edge of the Tor anonymity network. And he’s particularly interested in what you’re doing on Facebook.
That’s the conclusion of two researchers who used custom software to test Tor exit nodes for sneaky behavior, in a four-month study published yesterday.
In one of the country's biggest ever breaches, the personal data of at least 20 million bank and credit card users in South Korea has been leaked, in a country of 50 million.
The theft was revealed after an employee from personal credit ratings firm Korea Credit Bureau (KCB) was been arrested earlier this week.
Barack Obama has announced reforms to somewhat limit and examine US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, in order to win back trust following spying revelations made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Obama said in a speech today that he will issue presidential directives promising a number of key changes to how US intelligence agencies collect and examine data.
Dubbed Blackphone, and featured in the video above, the handset runs a hardened version of Android called PrivatOS that has been developed by Phil Zimmermann and Jon Callas, formerly of PGP. The mobe can make standard phone calls, but will include Silent Circle's apps to encrypt messages and voice and video chat, plus secure file sharing and anonymized VPN sessions.
The Starbucks mobile app, the most used mobile-payment app in the U.S., has been storing usernames, email addresses and passwords in clear text, Starbucks executives confirmed late on Tuesday (Jan. 14). The credentials were stored in such a way that anyone with access to the phone can see the passwords and usernames by connecting the phone to a PC. No jailbreaking of the phone is necessary. And that clear text also displays an extensive list of geolocation tracking points (latitude, longitude), a treasure trove of security and privacy gems for anyone who steals the phone.
According to a Reuters report based on "sources familiar with attacks on other merchants," Nieman Marcus and Target weren't the only high-profile, US retailers to be hacked during the 2013 holiday season. The news agency did not identify what specific retailers have also been affected, but it reports at least three other US retailers ("with outlets in malls") suffered breaches that have yet to be publicly disclosed.
Two Facebook users are suing the company to fight what they say is the company's practice of scanning their personal, private messages to other users so the company can then target personalized on-screen ads to users based on keywords used in their posts.
In a 36-page, three-count lawsuit, plaintiffs Michael Campbell, of Pulaski County, Ark., and Michael Hurley, of North Plains, Ore., allege that Facebook's actions violate several of that state's privacy laws.
A United Arab Emirates (UAE) deal to purchase two intelligence satellites from France worth almost 3.4 billion dirhams (US $930 million) is in jeopardy after the discovery of what was described as “security compromising components.”
A high-level UAE source said the two high-resolution Pleiades-type Falcon Eye military observation satellites contained two specific US-supplied components that provide a back door to the highly secure data transmitted to the ground station.
Back when he was still a National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden chose the privacy-minded e-mail provider Lavabit for his correspondence. It was from that account that he ultimately divulged his secrets to American journalists. Since Snowden became a household name, Lavabit shut down under legal pressure from a US court to hand over the keys to its kingdom as a way to get at Snowden’s data.
