Items tagged with Surveillance
The U.S. Government always has an eye on its citizens, as we learned from the 2013 Snowden scandal. Since then, the government has come up with craftier ways of surveilling Americans, which is made easy by the data we give away using our mobile devices. With this in mind, Oregon senator Ron Wyden is accusing the Pentagon of conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans by buying this data. For some time, Senator Wyden has been investigating government agencies buying US citizen's data, such as the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol warrantless tracking we reported on in December. In February, Senator Wyden's office asked the Department of Defense (DOD) for detailed explanations and information...
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Amazon delivery drivers will have a tough choice ahead if they want to continue working for the retail giant. Starting this week, Amazon is requiring delivery drivers to agree to a "biometric consent" form giving the company permission to use surveillance equipment installed onboard all its delivery vans to track activities (inside and outside the vehicle) and even their behavior while driving. This move comes after a February report confirmed that the surveillance system manufactured by Netradyne, called Driveri, is designed to "[improve] driver behavior" and monitor behavior such as speeding, making illegal U-turns, braking too hard, and failing to acknowledge stop signs. The system can...
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Over the last couple of weeks, hackers have been out in force, breaking into Microsoft Exchange and other services. Now, a group of international hackers who view themselves as vigilantes have breached Silicon Valley-startup Verkada Inc. This gave the hackers access to the live feeds of 150,000 surveillance cameras installed in numerous businesses and organizations. Today, the hacker group went public, explaining that they had footage from Tesla, Cloudflare Inc., and many other high-profile organizations. Moreover, the hackers accessed footage from “inside women’s health clinics, psychiatric hospitals and the offices of Verkada itself.” One video even showed footage from...
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Late last month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google over accusations of stifling competition with their search and advertising businesses. Now it appears that the advertising arm of Google allegedly was not only stifling competition but affecting customers as well. In a new class-action lawsuit against Google, plaintiff Joseph Taylor et. al claims Google is stealing property, specifically cellular data. According to the suit’s introduction, “Defendant Google LLC (“Google”) has a dirty little secret,” where Android is collecting data about its users and reporting back home regularly. While there are privacy implications...
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In 2013, Edward Snowden released information on the U.S. Government regarding the mass surveillance and aggregation of data in America. Now, a U.S. Appellate Court has deemed the mass surveillance unconstitutional and thus illegal. As Reuters reported, “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may well have been unconstitutional.” This is a win for both Snowden and people and groups against government surveillance. After fleeing persecution and ending up in Russia, Snowden is still following the situation. Yesterday,...
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The latest bombshell to come out of WikiLeaks’ Vault7 series of leaks from the CIA, exposes a tool codenamed “Grasshopper”, which allows operatives to deploy persistent surveillance and hacking payloads on target Windows-based computer systems and remain undetected from popular anti-malware and anti-virus tools.WikiLeaks has an array of documentation on-line, including an in-depth user’s guide for Grasshopper. The user’s guide explains that Grasshopper is “a software tool used to build custom installers for target computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems”, which seems straightforward enough, and quite frankly the kind of thing you’d expect an intelligence agency to have...
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Modern video surveillance systems with video recording capabilities can an be an expensive proposition, especially if you contract out installation and service. However, the combination of a high-capacity storage device, like a Synology DiskStation NAS (Networked Attached Storage) and IP surveillance cameras is a great alternative way to add a layer of security to monitor your home or business without dropping major dough. The DiskStation, like any Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device, can be used in a variety of ways ranging from simple network storage to a media server. Today, however, we will examine how anyone can configure their own DVR surveillance system using a Synology DiskStation...
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Can the FBI access your email if it is on a foreign server? Google was recently ordered by a United States judge to release emails stored on foreign mail servers to the FBI. The communications are possibly related to a domestic fraud case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled that transferring emails from a foreign server to the FBI does not count as seizure. He contended that the email transfer did not create any “meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest”. Furthermore, Judge Reuter insisted that any privacy infringement occurs “at the time of disclosure in the United States,” not when the information is transferred. Judge Reuter’s ruling goes...
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President Obama appears to be making the most out of his last few days in office. The Obama administration has just issued Executive Order 12333. The order will make it easier for the various intelligence agencies to access and share personal information about American citizens and people currently located in the United States. Executive Order 12333 allows intelligence agencies, specifically the NSA, to “disseminate information to other appropriate IC (Intelligence Communities) elements for purposes of allowing the recipient element to determine whether the information is relevant to its responsibilities and can be retained by it.” The intelligence agencies can request information concerning...
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If you are worried that someone is trying to hack into your iPhone via radio transmissions, Edward Snowden might have the solution for you. Snowden and hardware hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang just announced a design for a case-like device that connects to your iPhone and detects whether its radio is transmitting a signal. Snowden and Huang argued that phones can still transmit a signal if they are in airplane mode. Your GPS is still active even if your phone is not. They also contended that Faraday bags can still leak transmissions. A lone ranger phone therefore is not necessarily safe from surveillance. How would this add-on work? The actual device would look like a external battery case...
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It's been just over a year since Nest released its first security camera, an inside model with obvious Dropcam DNA, but what about setting up surveillance for outside the home? That's been one of the most requested product updates and now Nest has answered the call with the Nest Cam Outdoor, a security camera that's designed for the rigors of outside life. The Nest Cam Outdoor can do everything its indoor sibling can, only it isn't afraid of rain or snow—it sports a weatherproof design to protect it against the elements. It's also purportedly easy to install on a variety of surfaces, including wood, brick, and stucco. There's even a magnetic mount that you can stick on a rain gutter. And unlike...
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While many of us were seeking out the hottest deals this weekend, the US government carried out the greatest reduction of its spying efforts since they were expanded-upon following the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. Adhering to a law passed some six months ago, the National Security Agency is no long allowed to blindly pull down phone records of millions of Americans, a move that's being considered a major win by privacy advocates. Effective immediately, if the NSA wants to gather phone data on a target, it must get a court order and work with phone carriers to enable monitoring, and only for up to six months. This change comes two weeks after Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) struck Paris in a terrorist attack,...
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Ever since 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act, the federal government has pursued an aggressive set of data collection policies and surveillance practices. Edward Snowden's leaks last year may have raised public awareness of many of these events, but simply being aware of practices doesn't do a thing to stop them. Recent court decisions, however, could be a sign that the wall of secrecy the NSA has constructed to veil its actions is cracking -- with profound long-term implications. First, earlier this week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in United States v. Davis that cell phone users do have an expectation of privacy and that they do not "reasonably" understand that information...
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One of the most troubling facts that came out of Edward Snowden's disclosures last year was the degree to which the government has relied on National Security Letters to compel companies to reveal information about their clients without producing a warrant. Many NSLs were accompanied by non-disclosure orders that forbade the receiving company from revealing to the accused that their information had been demanded. Microsoft had previously gone to court over such tactics and today, the details of the company's strategic victory became public for the first time. Last year, the FBI demanded information on an unidentified Office 365 enterprise customer and included a non-disclosure requirement alongside...
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WD is working through the rainbow for its color-themed hard drive families, and the latest--purple--is designated for hard drives that are designed for surveillance. WD’s Purple Surveillance Storage drives are built to withstand the constant strain of running in an always-on HD surveillance applications. The 3.5-inch WD Purple drives will be available in capacities of 1TB ($89.99), 2TB ($119.99), 3TB ($159.99), and 4TB ($199.99) and feature SATA 6Gbps interfaces. The drives can handle non-stop operation and widely fluctuating temperatures, and are designed to be compatible with a plethora of video security systems and up to 32 HD video cameras. To help preserve the life of these hard drives,...
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We've covered the NSA revelations and subsequent government petitions at some length, but here's a new twist to the story of the government's pervasive monitoring program -- a view of the activity from an ISP's perspective. According to Pete Ashdown, the CEO of XMission, a Utah ISP, the company received its first FISA warrant "request" in 2010. There's no way to challenge FISA warrants and no legal recourse -- so Ashdown had no choice but to install a server, one of the NSA's own machines, in their data center. The technical aspects of the situation are remarkably straightforward. The NSA sent over a server (Ashdown was only allowed to take technical notes on how the unit was to be deployed)....
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Toshiba's Surveillance & IP Video business unit sent us a note introducing its new IK-WD14A dome camera, the company's first such model to sport a Full HD 1080p resolution so you can see what the bad guys are up to in sharp detail. According to Toshiba, it's new HD surveillance camera will make it far easier to make out facial features and license plate information, which the investigating officer will surely appreciate. "High-definition is the most prominent trend in the IP camera space," explained Sergio Collazo, Director of Sales and Marketing for Toshiba Surveillance & IP Video. "The IK-WD14A is a natural extension of Toshiba's IT culture and its strong history of innovation in consumer...
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Do you need a video monitoring system for your home, but are not sure if you can afford it? Or, maybe you just didn't want the hassle of installing one. D-Link has a solution that boasts ease of use.The leading computer networking solutions provider for consumers and business today announced its easy-to-install, easy-to-use D-Life® Web-based home surveillance camera systems are now available channel-wide and have enhanced optics, lower prices and key features designed to keep the home safe and secure.Now shipping, the D-Life security systems offer users maximum flexibility for monitoring their homes with a series of three different products -- the D-Life Internet Surveillance Camera Starter...
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Billed as "Your Reliable Surveillance Solution" by the folks over at Shuttle this little wonder is indeed unique. Available in a Mini-ITX/Shuttle form factor, this barebone package is targeted at the home surveillance market and includes the features needed for just that purpose.The D1416 features a 7-inch touch screen display located on the front and a surveillance card supporting up to 16 cameras. Also included is camera monitoring and recording software that has features like motion detection and remote surveillance capability with the ability to control it all from the touch screen. Users can set the software to record based on a custom schedule and all recordings are time stamped.Another...
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Ah yes, as technology advances, so do surveillance techniques. So this should surprise no one - should it?Classified documents from September 2007, leaked last week by the German political "Pirate Party," show one particular system that Bavarian police could have in place by February, and its high operating cost.The system, provided by a company known as Digitask, is called a "Skype Capture Unit," and is essentially a malware client installed onto the surveillance target. It intercepts Skype voice and chat data, purportedly offering real-time streaming of hijacked content. Digitask also offered the police the ability to intercept and decrypt SSL-based communication with a "man-in-the-middle"...
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