GCHQ Intercept sites in Oman - Bruce Schneier - Schneier on Security
The Brits have a spy base in the Middle East that taps into undersea cables, according to a Guardian story. What's more interesting than the story itself is that this information did not come from Edward Snowden or his plethora of files. Are we seeing more leakers and whistleblowers within the government? It's very possible.
To defeat encryption, feds deploy the Subpeona - David Kravets - ars technica
Project on Government Oversight's (POGO) mission is:
nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO’s investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
According to the story, POGO suggests that whistleblowers use Tor to report abuses to their encrypted submission portal. As a result, and after the most recent potential US Veterans Administration scandal, the government is trying to use super subpoena power to get at the information being submitted to POGO. The response from POGO, "You no has our data:"
If the VA doesn't drop its subpoena, POGO said it would never turn the data over, even if ordered to by a judge.
"We are certainly prepared to go to court," Newman said. "We are certainly prepared to go to jail to prevent any of that information from being released."
Bravo
Trickle down surveillance - Nathan Freed Wessler - Aljazeera America
More and more local police forces are use a device called stingrays. These devices are technology that have trickled down from the NSA and allow the user to track cellphones and identifying information. I can see where this becomes handy, but it's not a pinpoint type of device. It grabs everyone's cell phone information within an area, because it essentially acts like a cellphone tower. There's supposed to be some transparency with these devices, but it appears that some entities are trying to hide the usage of the device.
This post first appeared on Exploring Information Security.