BIG BROTHER in the age of INTERNET # (Ongoing - Links, Articles & Videos)

U.K. Supreme Court to Rule on Assange Extradition Appeal
By Kim Zetter
May 23, 2012 |

After months of anticipation, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will get a final ruling from a British court next Wednesday on his appeal of an extradition order to Sweden to face sex crimes allegations.

Assange, who has been under house arrest for a year and a half, asked the Supreme Court last February to overturn an order extraditing him to Sweden on grounds that the European arrest warrant issued against him was invalid because the Swedish prosecutor behind it was “working for the executive” and was therefore not a proper judicial authority, as the law requires.

Swedish authorities have maintained that the arrest warrant was proper and valid because in the early stages of an investigation when an arrest is first being sought, judicial authorities do not have to be independent or impartial.

Should the seven justices of the Supreme Court agree with Sweden and uphold the extradition ruling, Assange will have one last chance to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

FBI secretly creates Internet police
25 May, 2012

The FBI was rather public with its recent demands for backdoor access to websites and Internet services across the board, but as the agency awaits those secret surveillance powers, they're working on their own end to have those e-spy capabilities.

Not much has been revealed about one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s newest projects, the Domestic Communications Assistance Center, and the FBI will probably try to keep it that way. Despite attempting to keep the DCAC largely under wraps, an investigation spearheaded by Cnet’s Declan McCullagh is quickly collecting details about the agency’s latest endeavor.

Governmental agencies have been searching seemingly without end for ways to pry into the personal communications of computer users in America. Congressional approval and cooperation from Internet companies could be an eternity away, of course, but the FBI might be able to bypass that entirely by taking the matter into their own hands. At the Quantico, Virginia headquarters of the DCAC, federal workers are believed to be already hard at work on projects that will put FBI spies into the Internet, snooping on unsuspecting American’s Skype calls, instant messages and everything else carried out with a mouse and keyboard.

CONTINUE: [link to rt.com]

Deadline Approaches for Russia and China led UN Internet Takeover
May 26, 2012

The Daily Caller – by Josh Peterson The State Department is expected to finally name a lead negotiator next month for high level international talks with the U.N. in December that would decide the fate of the Internet, a senior U.S. official told Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio last week.

The nomination would come nearly a year after then-Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin announced in June 2011 that he and his allies sought to establish international control over the Internet. At the time, Putin had “reaffirmed” Russia’s support of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) — a little-known U.N. agency responsible for the international regulation of long-distance calls and satellite orbits — as his preferred instrument to bring about international cooperation on cybersecurity and Internet issues. Russia is a co-founder of the ITU, dating back to 1866.

CONTINUE: [link to fromthetrenchesworldreport.com]

Meet ‘Flame’, The Massive Spy Malware Infiltrating Iranian Computers
By Kim Zetter
May 28, 2012

A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation.

The malware, discovered by Russia-based anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab, is an espionage toolkit that has been infecting targeted systems in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa for at least two years.

Dubbed “Flame” by Kaspersky, the malicious code dwarfs Stuxnet in size – the groundbreaking infrastructure-sabotaging malware that is believed to have wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010. Although Flame has both a different purpose and composition than Stuxnet, and appears to have been written by different programmers, its complexity, the geographic scope of its infections and its behavior indicate strongly that a nation-state is behind Flame, rather than common cyber-criminals — marking it as yet another tool in the growing arsenal of cyberweaponry.

The researchers say that Flame may be part of a parallel project created by contractors who were hired by the same nation-state team that was behind Stuxnet and its sister malware, DuQu.

“Stuxnet and Duqu belonged to a single chain of attacks, which raised cyberwar-related concerns worldwide,” said Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, in a statement. “The Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war, and it’s important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any country.”

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

Obama and Congress Approve Resolution That Supports UN Internet Takeover
Susanne Posel, Contributor
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Activist Post

In late 2011, representative from China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan submitted a proposal called the International Code of Conduct for Information Security (ICCIS) to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that called for international consensus of a global set of rules and regulations that standardize information flow on the Internet.

The ICCIS sets forth specific “principles of maintaining information and network security which cover the political, military, economic, social, cultural, technical and other aspects.”

The ICCIS mandates that countries not be allowed to use information and telecommunications technologies “to conduct hostile behaviors and acts of aggression or to threaten international peace and security and stress that countries have the rights and obligations to protect their information and cyberspace as well as key information and network infrastructure from threats, interference and sabotage attacks.” Read the full text here.

Army General Keith Alexander, commander of the US Cyber Command (USCC) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA), does not support the UN’s International Telecommunication Union; citing that the US needs to independently protect their “critical networks” such as electrical power, banking, transportation and other “key elements of society”.

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

‘Flame’ Virus explained: How it works and who’s behind it
by RT
29 May, 2012

Flame may be the most powerful computer virus in history, and a nation-state is most likely to blame for unleashing it on the World Wide Web.Kaspersky's chief malware expert Vitaly Kamlyuk shared with RT the ins and outs of Stuxnet on steroids.

Iran appears to be the primary target of the data-snatching virus that has swept through the Middle East, though other countries have also been affected.The sheer complexity of the virus and its targets has led Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab to believe a state is behind the attack.

Kaspersky first spotted the virus in 2010, though it may have been wrecking havoc on computer systems for many years.Vitaly Kamlyuk told RT how his company discovered it, just what makes Flame so significant, features of the virus that could point towards its creator, and why we all lose out in this intensifying cyber-war.

CONTINUE: [link to www.rt.com]

Brussels wants e-identities for EU citizens
29 May 2012

The European Commission is set to launch a substantial review of rules governing personal documents with the aim of making electronic identities take off across the EU. But the proposal faces likely opposition from civil rights groups and member states where identity cards do not exist.

Neelie Kroes, the EU's Digital Agenda Commissioner, will present by the beginning of June a new legislative proposal which aims “to facilitate cross-border electronic transactions” through the adoption of harmonised e-signatures, e-identities and electronic authentication services (eIAS) across EU member states, according to an internal document seen by EurActiv.

“A clear regulatory environment for eIAS would boost user convenience, trust and confidence in the digital world,” reads the paper. “This will increase the availability of cross-border and cross-sector eIAS and stimulate the take up of cross-border electronic transactions in all sectors.”

Brussels has long been trying to facilitate the emergence of a parallel system of electronic identification, on top of the the real-world existing documents. This has mainly been linked to the struggle for establishing a truly functioning single market, rather than on security grounds.

CONTINUE: [link to www.euractiv.com]

When the Government Comes Knocking, Who Has Your Back? - EFF Charts the Privacy and Transparency Practices of the Internet's Biggest Companies
Thursday, May 31, 2012
EFF

When you use the Internet, you entrust your thoughts, experiences, locations, and more to companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. But what happens when the government asks these companies to hand over your private information? Will the company stand with you? Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) releases its second annual "When the Government Comes Knocking, Who Has Your Back?" report – this time as a white paper and chart tracking some of the Internet's biggest service providers on their public commitments to their users' privacy and security.

Increasingly, federal law enforcement agents are demanding that Internet companies provide their users' data as part of government investigations – sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. EFF's report examines 18 companies' terms of service, privacy policies, public representations, advocacy, and courtroom track records, awarding them gold stars for best practices in categories like "tell users about government data demands" and "fight for user privacy in courts."

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

The UN International Telecommunications Union is Next Danger to Internet Freedom
Susanne Posel, Contributor
Friday, June 1, 2012
Activist Post

In a few months, Dubai will be the stage for a potential firestorm with the Internet at the center.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is an extension of the UN that has the control over the Internet in mind. What the UN would like to do to the Internet makes SOPA and PIPA seem like harmless legislation.

Both parties of the UN Congress met and agreed to resist the attempt of the UN to usurp the Web “with everything [they] have”.

Member of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee (CMTS) released a resolution that admonished the US government to take a stance on global governance that “clearly articulates the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today.”

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

In Ad Network Nightmare, Microsoft Making ‘Do Not Track’ Default for IE 10
By Ryan Singel
May 31, 2012 |

Microsoft announced Thursday that the next version of its browser, IE 10, will ship with the controversial “Do Not Track” feature turned on by default, a first among major browsers, creating a potential threat to online advertising giants.

That includes one of Microsoft’s chief rivals — Google.

The change could also threaten the still-nascent privacy standard, and prompt an ad industry revolt against it.

Do Not Track doesn’t attempt to block cookies — instead it sends a message to every website you visit saying you prefer not to be tracked. That flag is currently optional for sites and web advertising firms to obey, but it’s gaining momentum with Twitter embracing it last week.

The proposal also has the backing of the FTC, which has grown deeply skeptical of the online ad industry’s willingness to play fairly with users and has threatened to call for online privacy legislation. After initially opposing the idea, the online ad industry is now seeking to soothe the feds by hammering out rules that aren’t too tough on data collection. The hope then is that not many users avail themselves of the tool, and then not much has to change in how ad companies build profiles of users in order to sell premium-priced targeted ads.

But Microsoft’s announcement throws a wrench in those plans, since it’s likely that eventually something like 25 percent or more of the net’s users will upgrade to IE 10 over time and have DNT on by default. Microsoft said it’s making the change to better protect user privacy, and given the IE team’s recent history of including privacy technologies in the browser, that’s easy to believe.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet
By Mikko Hypponen
June 1, 2012 |


A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Iran. It was sent by an analyst from the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team, and it was informing me about a piece of malware their team had found infecting a variety of Iranian computers. This turned out to be Flame: the malware that has now been front-page news worldwide.

When we went digging through our archive for related samples of malware, we were surprised to find that we already had samples of Flame, dating back to 2010 and 2011, that we were unaware we possessed. They had come through automated reporting mechanisms, but had never been flagged by the system as something we should examine closely. Researchers at other antivirus firms have found evidence that they received samples of the malware even earlier than this, indicating that the malware was older than 2010.
Mikko Hypponen

What this means is that all of us had missed detecting this malware for two years, or more. That’s a spectacular failure for our company, and for the antivirus industry in general.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

The UN Wants Complete Control Over The Internet And That Would Mean Unprecedented Censorship, Taxes And Surveillance
June 2, 2012

One of the fastest ways to ruin the Internet would be to put the United Nations in charge of it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the United Nations wants. The United Nations is now pushing very hard for complete control over the Internet. A proposal that has the support of China, Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran would give control of the Internet to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union. This is perhaps the greatest threat to the free and open Internet that we have seen yet. At a UN conference in Dubai this upcoming December, representatives from 193 nations will debate this proposal.

The United States and many European nations are firmly against this proposal, but it is unclear whether they have the votes to stop it. Unlike the Security Council, there are no vetoes when it comes to ITU proceedings. So the United States may not be able to stop governance of the Internet from being handed over to the United Nations. The United States could opt out of any new treaty, but that would result in a "balkanized" Internet.

If the UN gains control over the Internet, you can expect a whole new era of censorship, taxes, and surveillance. It would be absolutely catastrophic for the free flow of commerce and information around the globe. Unfortunately, many repressive regimes are very dissatisfied with how the Internet is currently working and they desperately want to be able to use the power of the UN to tax, regulate and censor the Internet. Needless to say, that would be a disaster. International control over the Internet would be a complete and total nightmare and it must be resisted.

CONTINUE: [link to endoftheamericandream.com]

CBS Calls DHS 'Big Brother' for Social Media Spying
Sunday, June 3, 2012

CONTINUE TO VIDEO: [link to www.activistpost.com]

The Cybersecurity Act (S. 2105) Threatens Online Rights - a Handout for Your Senator
Rainey Reitman
Thursday, June 7, 2012

Worried about the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act? You should be. As we've explained before, it poses serious threats to online rights.

Here's a one-page handout you can use as a reference. It's great for sharing with friends, handing to Senate staffers, publishing online, or using as talking points when explaining the issue to someone for the first time. Download it here and please spread it around!

The Cybersecurity Act (S. 2105), sponsored by Sen. Lieberman and Sen. Collins, compromises core American civil liberties in the name of detecting and thwarting network attacks. While Internet security is of the utmost importance, safeguarding our networks need not come at the expense of our online freedoms. That’s why civil liberties groups, security experts, and Internet users oppose this bill.

The Cybersecurity Act is fundamentally flawed and dangerous for online rights:

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

FBI Illegally Pirated Kim Dotcom’s Data Out of New Zealand, File-Sharing King Charges
By Juha Saarinen
June 6, 2012 |

New Zealand lawyers for Kim Dotcom and associates allege that FBI agents committed an “illegal act” by cloning data from the file-sharing tycoon’s seized computers and FedExing it to the United States.

The cloned data was sent overseas just days after a judge decided a court hearing was needed to work out if the FBI agents were allowed to take the material, Dotcom’s lawyer Willy Akel told the High Court of Auckland Wednesday.

Akel said the FBI sent material back to the States without the New Zealand police having any say in the matter and that the police force had effectively lost control over it.

The US government is accusing Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, of running a criminal conspiracy that made hundreds of millions of dollars by letting users share copyrighted files online. The US Justice Department seized the company’s many domain names, servers and assets in January, and is seeking extradition of Dotcom from New Zealand to the United States for trial.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

IE 10's ‘Do-Not-Track’ Default Dies Quick Death
By Ryan Singel
June 6, 2012

Well, that didn’t take long.

The latest proposed draft of the Do Not Track specification published Wednesday requires that users must choose to turn on the anti-behavioral tracking feature in their browsers and software.

That means that Microsoft IE 10, which the company announced last week will have Do Not Track turned on by default, won’t be compliant with the official spec. Which means that tech and ad companies who say they comply with Do Not Track could simply ignore the flag set by IE 10 and track those who use that browser. Which means Microsoft has no choice but to change the setting.

Microsoft’s surprise announcement last Thursday was interpreted by many as a way to gouge Google, which runs an ad system based on tracking cookies. But it also enraged many online ad companies and industry groups, who saw the move as overly aggressive and a threat to their business model.

The proposal, put forward by the leading privacy voices on the specification, is not yet accepted by the entire group which includes privacy advocates, browser makers, technology firms and online ad companies. But as it includes major concessions by privacy groups, it’s likely to be accepted by and large.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

Last Edited by RoXY on 06/08/2012 12:16 AM

10 Failed Attempts by the Government to Control the Internet
Christine Kane, Contributor
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Activist Post

The topic that was dangling at the forefront of most American’s minds at the end of 2011, and even seeping into the beginning of 2012, was the fate of the Internet.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, discussed further below, whipped citizens into a frenzy and led to the largest Internet-based protest to date.

In light of a slightly-reworked, renamed SOPA’s emergence, it is worth reviewing ten failed attempts by the American government to control the Internet.

1. Communications Decency Act (1996) – The portions of the Communications Decency Act that were the most controversial were the ones that attempted to regulate internet pornography; a judiciary panel stated that the bill would infringe upon First Amendment rights and the bill was squashed.

2. Child Online Protection Act (1998) – Though the Child Online Protection Act was passed in 1998, a federal injunction claiming that the language was too broad caused the law to never take effect.

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

Flame Steals Data Even When Computers Are Not Connected to the Internet
Susanne Posel, Contributor
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Activist Post

Experts specializing in malware from Bitdefender have uncovered a special capability in Flame’s code that allows the virus to steal data from computers that are not connected to the Internet or networked machines.

Flame can move stolen data to a USB memory stick plugged into an infected harddrive. Bitdefender asserts that this ability has never been witnessed before.

This cyber-espionage virus will move stolen information to an USB outlet, then seemingly wait for the chance to upload it to the malware controllers once the infected computer links to the Internet.

Bogdan Botezatu, malware analyst from Bitdefeder, said: It turns users into data mules. Chances are, at some point, a user with an infected flash drive will plug it into a secure computer in a contained environment, and Flame will carry the target’s information from the protected environment to the outside world…It uses its ability to infect to ensure an escape route for the data. This is is somewhat revolutionary for a piece of malware.

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

FOI Documents Show TOR Undernet Beyond the Reach of the Federal Investigators - FOI Request: silk road anonymous marketplace (DOJ)
Michael Morisy
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Activist Post

Recently released documents detail the federal government's inability to pursue cybercriminals shrouded by the tricky anonymity tools used by the Silk Road marketplace and other darknet sites - tools which are funded in part by the federal government itself. In this particular case, a citizen reported stumbling upon a cache of child pornography while browsing the anonymous Tor network's hidden sites, which are viewable with specialized, but readily available, tools and the special .onion domain.

Documents, released through a Freedom of Information Act request by Jason Smathers on MuckRock, show that after being given details of the illicit material, investigators were stymied as to the origin of the pornography's host. In the investigators' own words, "there is not currently a way to trace the origin of the website. As such no other investigative leads exist."

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

Want More Internet Privacy? How to Turn on 'Do Not Track' in Your Browser
Eva Galperin
Thursday, June 14, 2012

In recent years, online tracking companies have begun to monitor our clicks, searches and reading habits as we move around the Internet. If you are concerned about pervasive online web tracking by behavioral advertisers, then you may want to enable Do Not Track on your web browser.

Do Not Track is unique in that it combines both technology (a signal transmitted from a user) as well as a policy framework for how companies that receive the signal should respond. As more and more websites respect the Do Not Track signal from your browser, it becomes a more effective tool for protecting your privacy.

EFF is working with privacy advocates and industry representatives through the W3C Tracking Protection Working Group to define standards for how websites that receive the Do Not Track signal ought to response in order to best respect consumer's choices.

The following tutorial walks you through the enabling Do Not Track in the four most popular browsers: Safari, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, and Chrome.

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

WTF? — 20 New Top-Level Domain Names That Should Exist, But Never Will
By Ryan Singel
June 14, 2012

On Tuesday, the list of new proposed top-level domains, and the companies seeking to control them, was published by ICANN.

The new contenders to the throne of .com’s dominance include Amazon with .book, Google with .youtube, and three companies seeking .sucks. There are also applications for .lol, .bar, and .beer.

While the list is interesting to read, it’s lacking in entertainment value — perhaps because the $185,000 fee to apply for consideration, which you pay even if your application is rejected, is prohibitive of amusement.

So with some help from Wired colleagues and Twitter friends, I’ve compiled a list of domain names that should exist, but never will. Most wouldn’t pass muster for technical or policy reasons. But since this is a wish list, I’ll propose them anyway, in the hope that a vast army of .keyboardcommandos can manifest them.

In no particular order, the list:

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

Assange to Be Extradited to Sweden After UK Supreme Court Refuses Final Appeal
By Kim Zetter
June 14, 2012

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been ordered to return to Sweden to face sex-crimes allegations after the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom rejected a bid to re-open his appeal case there. But the judges have given him a two-week reprieve before extradition proceedings will begin, saving him from being immediately ejected from the country.

Seven judges unanimously dismissed his request, according to the BBC, saying it was without merit.

Two weeks ago the Supreme Court rejected Assange’s appeal of the extradition on grounds that the Swedish arrest warrant was invalid. At a hearing announcing that decision, Assange’s attorneys requested they be allowed to re-open the appeal on a technicality, saying the judges had made their decision based on a point that they had not been given an opportunity to argue in court.

CONTINUE: [link to www.wired.com]

'Conspiracy Theorists' Oppose Planned Government Big Brother Internet Surveillance: British Home Secretary
Brit Dee, Contributor
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Activist Post

The British home secretary Theresa May has described those opposed to the introduction of hugely intrusive telephone and Internet surveillance measures as "conspiracy theorists".

On Thursday the government will publish in draft form details of a bill called the Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) which, if passed, will allow the police and intelligence services real-time access to details of all British phone calls and Internet activity.

The bill will therefore allow the state total surveillance of all British communications - including phone numbers and email addresses of people you have been in contact with, as well as exactly where and when the contact took place - without the need for a warrant, or even any suspicion that you have been involved in criminal activity.

Responding to the outcry from those who see the legislation for what it is - a massive ramping up of the Big Brother state - May blithely dismissed critics by saying that she didn't

CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

How Flame virus has changed everything for online security firms
By John Naughton
Sunday, June 17, 2012

Here’s a question: if you connect an unprotected Windows computer to the internet, how long will it take before it is infected by malicious software? The answer is: much more quickly than most lay users think. In 2003, the average time was 40 minutes. A year later it was 20 minutes. By 2008 an unpatched computer running Microsoft Windows XP could only expect five to 16 minutes of freedom. The Internet Storm Centre (ISC) provides a useful chart of what it calls “survival time” for Windows machines. It suggests that a PC currently can expect between 40 and 200 minutes of freedom before an automated probe reaches it to determine whether it can be penetrated. The numbers for other operating systems (such as Unix and Linux) are better (from 400 to 1,400 minutes), but the moral is the same: the only way to have an absolutely secure computer is not to connect it to the net.

On the back of statistics like this, a huge global industry has grown up – the PC “security” business – dominated by companies such as Norton, Symantec, Sophos and Kaspersky. They offer software tools for blocking computer viruses, worms and Trojans (programs that look innocuous but compromise the computer in some way, rendering it controllable by an external agent).

The PC security business does offer a degree of protection from the evils of malware, but suffers from one structural problem: its products are, by definition, reactive. When a particular piece of malicious software appears, it is analysed in order to determine its distinctive “signature”, which will enable it to be detected when it arrives at your machine. Then a remedy is devised and an update or “patch” issued – which is why your PC is forever inviting you to download updates – and why IT support people always look pityingly at you when you explain sheepishly that you failed to perform the aforementioned downloads.

CONTINUE: [link to www.rawstory.com]