Entries tagged as ‘security’
Via ARS Technica
By Julian Sanchez | Published: September 23, 2008 – 09:25PM CT
Internal Department of Homeland Security Documents obtained by civil rights groups reveal that, since 2000, Customs and Border Patrol guidelines have been loosened to allow border agents significantly more latitude to question and search travelers entering the United States.
Prompted by travelers’ reports of border guards increasingly probing into the political views, religious beliefs, and volunteer activities of border crossers, the Asian Law Caucus and Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the DHS in February, seeking the release of records detailing the policies that govern border searches. In June and late July, the groups obtained over 600 pages worth of documents, of which they recently issued a thorough analysis. They found that as border policies were revised in 2000 and again in 2007, restrictions on the examination, seizure, copying, and sharing of travelers’ personal effects and documents were shed.
The 2007 guidelines, for example, stipulated that customs officers “may glance at documents and papers to see if they appear to be merchandise” [emphasis added], and permitted close reading only if “an officer reasonably suspects that they relate to” one of several classes of restricted materials. Probable cause, or the consent of the owner, was needed to seize or copy documents. Under the revised rules, officers may seize or copy papers or digital files for the purpose of performing a “thorough border search” without any need for individualized suspicion.
The “reasonable suspicion” requirement was also dispensed with as a prerequisite for sharing seized or copied information with other agencies for translation. A memo from the Area Port of Anchorage, however, does establish that an officer who uses an imaging device to copy the contents of a digital storage medium should inform a supervisor of the “circumstances and articulable facts” justifying the copy.
Though the procedures to be employed by officers questioning subjects selected for secondary screening were heavily redacted, the groups note that despite their specific request for any policies that would restrain customs officials from inquiring about protected First Amendment activities, no such information was forthcoming. Though one statement of procedure acknowledges citizens have a constitutional right to refuse to answer certain sorts of questions, it provides for further probing in the face of such refusal if “articulable facts” justify an extended interview.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: border, security
Via Tech Crunch
Encryption scares a lot of people – me included – because it’s based on really complicated mathematics. Thankfully, the state of encryption software has advanced sufficiently in the last couple of years that it’s pretty easy for laypeople like us to take advantage of the protection it offers. Just like you don’t shop online without a secured HTTPS connection, you really ought not engage in private conversations online without encrypting your messages. When you encrypt your messages, you don’t need to worry so much about a college kid hacking into your Yahoo! account when you’re appointed to some high office: sure, they might get into your account, but the contents of your messages are still protected. And in this age of cloud computing, when we’re never entirely sure where any particular bit of our data might be, nor who might have access to it, encryption starts to look even more attractive.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: security, web mail
Via CNN.com
By Larry Shaughnessy
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) — When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.
A social-networking site for the world of spying officially launches for the U.S. intelligence community this month.
But that’s not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.
“It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.
The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.
The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community September 22.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media · Resources - Social Networks
Tagged: facebook, myspace, security
Via ARS Technica
By John Timmer | Published: September 23, 2008 – 05:15AM CT
For most of us, security issues happen to “other people”—we block popup ads, we carefully examine dialog boxes and, for those of us on the Mac platform, we snicker when confronted with something that attempts to mimic a Windows system warning. But everyone knows that they are exceptional—what’s the behavior of a more typical user like? Some researchers have tested how college students respond to fake dialog boxes in browser popup windows and found that the students are so anxious to get the dialog out of the way, they click right through obvious warning signs.
The authors, who work in the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University, crafted a set of four fake dialog boxes. All of them contained the following warning: “The instruction at ‘0×77f41d24 referenced memory at ‘0×595c2a4c.’ The memory could not be ‘read.’ Click OK to terminate program.” One of the warnings was indistinguishable from the standard Windows XP system dialog, but the remaining three were had a number of warning signs that should tip off users to potential malware.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: malware, security
Via Tech Crunch
Hack into – and then publish – the email account of a major politician, especially one under Secret Service protection and currently running for Vice President, and you had better cover your tracks. Well. WBIR is among those reporting that FBI agents broke into a party at the Fort Sanders apartment of University of Tennessee student David Kernell early Sunday morning. A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed there has been “investigatory activity” in Knoxville regarding the incident where Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account was hacked and information published online.
According to a witness, several agents arrived at The Commons of Knoxville apartment block around midnight, took down the names of everyone at the party and then spent the next 1.5 to 2 hours taking pictures of everything inside the apartment. So far it looks like there are no publicly available search warrants, and no charges have been filed. Give it time. Witnesses say Kernell and his friends fled the apartment while his three roommates were subpoenaed.
It turns out that David Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis, and the blogosphere – especially right wing bloggers – has been cock-a-hoop about the possibility that the hacker in question is Kernell and the action was engineered by the Democractic Party. That includes Knoxville blogger and WBIR contributor Terry Frank who is helpfully (but with no basis in fact) posting images of Kernell’s Facebook page, although she has removed his mobile phone number. Nice touch.
As Wired reports, the blogosphere says someone going by the name “Rubico” on the 4chan forum admitted to hacking Palin’s email. Rubico’s handle was then connected to an e-mail address which tentatively identified the owner as a college student in Tennessee. It’s clear that the “hack” was simply created by reseting Palin’s password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse – all information freely available online. So who should be in court here? A college kid, or Yahoo’s email security people?
Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: security, web mail
Via Ars Technica
By Julian Sanchez | Published: September 17, 2008 – 07:32PM CT
A hacker claiming affiliation with the group Anonymous has broken into GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account, subsequently posting the account password to an online chat forum. Information from the hacked account, including screenshots of several individual e-mails, a pair of family photographs, Palin’s contact list, and header information from her inbox, were posted on the site Wikileaks earlier Wednesday.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: security, web mail
September 17, 2008 · 1 Comment
Via ARS Technica
By Nate Anderson | Published: September 16, 2008 – 01:30PM CT
Customs and Border Patrol agents can grab your laptop, BlackBerry, or external hard drive without needing so much as a reason, but a new bill introduced last week to Congress would at least put some limits on how border searches could be done.
“I was deeply concerned to learn about the lack of protections individuals’ have when their electronic equipment is randomly seized,” said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), who introduced the bill. “With the passage of the Border Search Accountability Act of 2008, Americans will be able to travel with more peace of mind knowing that their data will be further protected and that there are stringent accountability measures in place for safeguarding their personal information.”
Note what her bill will not do—make searches more difficult. Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that border searches of electronic devices (even those without any probably cause) did not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment’s unreasonable search and seizure clause. Judges noted that precedent already allows searches of 1) briefcases and luggage, 2) a purse, wallet, or pocket, 3) papers found in pockets, and 4) pictures, films, and other graphic material. So why not laptops?
While such searches would not appear to be legal within the country, courts have long recognized the government’s right to “protect its territorial integrity” by controlling the material passing across its borders.
Sanchez’s bill would bring more routine to the search process. The bill requires the government to draft additional rules regarding information security, the number of days a device can be retained, receipts that must be issued when devices are taken, ways to report abuses, and it requires the completion of both a privacy impact study and a civil liberties impact study. Travelers would also have the explicit right to watch as the search is conducted.
Sanchez also wants data about the searches, which would have to be turned over to Congress once per quarter. Specifically, she wants to know how many searches are being done, where they take place, and the race and nationality of those being searched.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: security
Via ARS Technica
By Julian Sanchez | Published: September 16, 2008 – 10:35PM CT
John McCain has caught his share of flak for not knowing his way around e-mail. But as his running mate has been discovering over the past week, being a bit too clever with e-mail has its pitfalls as well. As Sarah Palin seeks to beat back charges that she improperly used her position as governor to urge the firing of her estranged brother-in-law, an Alaska state trooper, internal documents suggest that her staff may have hoped to channel sensitive correspondence through unofficial personal e-mail accounts to evade potential subpoenas.
“Troopergate,” as the iron laws of American political scandal nomenclature dictated the fracas would be dubbed, began as a dispute worthy of Judge Judy: Palin’s sister was embroiled in a nasty divorce and custody dispute with State Trooper Mike Wooten, and the newly elected governor made no secret of her displeasure that the ex-in-law was not yet an ex-lawman. The family tiff blossomed into a full-blown ethics investigation after Palin dismissed public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, who has claimed his refusal to fire Wooten led to his own termination.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media
Tagged: politics, security, web mail, yahoo
Via the New York Times
By Claire Cain Miller
Maverick Mobile Solutions, an Indian company that makes mobile applications, has a new way to protect your cell phone: tell it to follow the lead of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and “phone home.”
Or, to bring E.T. into the 21st century, “text home.”
If your phone is lost or stolen, the application, called Maverick Secure Mobile, encrypts your data, sends you a text message with the location of the phone and, best of all, plays an annoyingly loud siren to torture the thief.
The application was unveiled at the DEMO technology conference in San Diego, Calif., this week, where it provided a few minutes of “comic relief,” according to Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat.
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Categories: 2. New Media in the Media · Resources - Mobility
Tagged: cellular, security
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