Items tagged with National Security Agency
A hacking group that calls itself Shadow Brokers claims to have stolen sophisticated surveillance tools previously used by a group of high-tech hackers with ties to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The group announced plans to auction off the tools, though security experts aren't sure if what they have is the real deal or if this is an elaborate hoax.In a post that's since been removed on Tumblr, the hacking group said it's in possession of cyber weapons made by the creators of Duqu, Flame, and Stuxnet and that this cache of tools is even more dangerous. Stuxnet is still considered one of the most advanced computer worms ever built. It's widely credited to the United States and Israel...
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Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency who leaked confidential documents and information to the press regarding the U.S. government's PRISM program, says he has never been "so wrong," and for that he's "grateful." Let's add some context, shall we? Snowden says he was wrong to worry that his efforts and the risk he and the journalists who broke the story over the NSA's bulk collection of phone records would have been for nothing, "that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations." "Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong," Snowden said as part of an editorial celebrating the recent forced expiration...
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Senator Rand Paul, a presidential hopeful for the Republican party, was ultimately successful in his ongoing effort to prevent the U.S. Senate from voting on extensions to key provisions of the Patriot Act. As a result, the National Security Agency's legal authority to collect telephone records in bulk expired at the stroke of midnight Monday."Tonight we stopped the illegal NSA bulk data collection. This is a victory no matter how you look at it," Rand said in a statement. "It might be short lived, but I hope that it provides a road for a robust debate, which will strengthen our intelligence community, while also respecting our Constitution."Image Source: Flickr (Ashleigh Nushawg)There were three...
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The fate of the National Security Agency's ability to collect phone records on a mass scale has yet to be determined as the Senate continues to shoot down measures passed by the House of Representatives. One of those measures was the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would effectively put an end to bulk telephone data collection.It's a bill that President Barack Obama and his administration adamantly supported. The House of Representatives also was favor of the USA Freedom Act, as both Republicans and Democrats came together to approve the measure with a majority 338-to-88 vote. However, the bill stalled in the Senate, where it was shot down by a 57-to-42 vote, coming up three votes short of the 60...
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In a 338-to-88 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday showed strong support for the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would effectively end the National Security Agency's ability to collect phone records on a mass scale. It would also make other changes to the scope of the NSA's surveillance program, though a similar bill was voted down in the Senate last year. "All I know is, these programs expire at the end of this month. They are critically important to keep Americans safe," House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said ahead of the vote. "The House is going to act, and I would hope the Senate would act soon as well." There's a division among politicians in how to balance civil liberties...
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Sir Walter Scott warned long about about weaving a tangled web through deception, but apparently the Department of Justice (DoJ) and National Security Agency (NSA) aren't fans of old poetry. If they were, they'd drop the secrecy behind the PRISM program that whistleblower Edward Snowden blew wide open earlier this year. The truth eventually comes out anyway, as it did with Google's reluctant participation in PRISM. Google wants to offer its users transparency about what's going on, but its hands are tied after the DoJ won a court ruling to keep the search giant from talking about federal demands for using data. Doing so would be a threat to national security, the DoJ argued. Image Source: Flickr...
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Yesterday, the newly minted head of the United States' Cyber Command team and NSA head General Keith Alexander told assembled lawmakers that the US has created offensive cyberwarfare divisions designed to do far more than protect US assets from foreign attacks. This is a major change in policy from previous public statements -- in the past, the US has publicly focused on defensive actions and homegrown security improvements. "I would like to be clear that this team, this defend-the-nation team, is not a defensive team,” General Alexander told the House Armed Services Committee. "This is an offensive team that the Defense Department would use to defend the nation if it were attacked in cyberspace....
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