A picture in a story is worth 1001.2
words!
Inner
workings of a top secret spy program
The National Security Agency’s PRISM
progam, which collects intelligence from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo,
Apple and other tech giants, is “targeted” at foreign- ers. But
it also collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats of an
unknown number of Americans — “inadvertently,” “incidentally”
or deliberately if an American is conversing with a foreign target
overseas. Here are new details on how the program works, from
Top-Secret documents and interviews.
Not a lot of detail, but a peek at what
happens...
Founder
of nonprofit Internet Archive permitted to talk about receiving a
national-security letter
“Brewster Kahle,
the founder of the nonprofit Internet Archive, perhaps the greatest
of our digital libraries, and of the Wayback Machine, which allows
you to browse an archive of the Web that reaches back to 1996. He
is one of very
few people in the United States who can talk about receiving a
national-security
letter. These letters are one of the ways government
agencies, in particular the F.B.I., can demand data from
organizations in matters related to national security. They do not
require prior approval from a judge, only the assertion that the
information demanded is relevant to a national-security
investigation. Recipients of a national-security letter typically
are not allowed to disclose it.”
[From the article:
Hundreds
of thousands of national-security letters have been sent. But
only the plaintiffs in the three successful challenges so far—Kahle;
Nicholas Merrill, of Calyx Internet Access; and the Connecticut
librarians George Christian, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, and Janet
Nocek—are known to have had them rescinded, together with all or
part of their related gag orders, according to Nate Cardozo, a staff
attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“Suspects” use encryption, why
don't corporations?
Wiretap
Report 2012 – Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
“Each Wiretap Report uses
tables, text, and charts to report information provided by federal
and state officials on orders authorizing or approving interceptions
of wire, oral, or electronic communications for the calendar year
ending December 31… This report
covers intercepts concluded between January 1, 2012, and December 31,
2012, and provides supplementary information on arrests and
convictions resulting from intercepts concluded in prior years.
- The reports present data on types of offenses under investigation, nature and locations of intercept devices, costs and durations of intercepts, and intercept extensions granted.
- They do not include names, addresses, or phone numbers of subjects under surveillance.
- Publications dating back to 1997 are available in the archive.
- This report does not include data on interceptions regulated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
[From the report:
Encryption was reported
for 15 wiretaps in 2012 and for 7 wiretaps conducted during previous
years. In four of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher
the plain text of the messages. This is the
first time that jurisdictions have reported that encryption prevented
officials from obtaining the plain text of the communications since
the AO began collecting encryption data in 2001.
For my ethical hackers...
You don't need to go to the dark side.
Being labeled a “hacker” usually
comes with plenty of negative connotations. If you call yourself a
hacker, people will often perceive you as someone who causes mischief
just for giggles. But as I described in this
article explaining the difference between good and bad hackers,
there are also ethical hackers that end up doing similar tasks for
good and not evil.
… Experience can be gained in two
different ways — freelance jobs and good ol’ messin’ around.
Using the Internet is crucial as it contains a wealth of free
information to help you learn as you try out new things. There are
also plenty of resources to look at, such as James’
tutorial on how to crack a WEP-protected wireless network, the
BackTrack
Linux distribution that specializes in penetration testing, and
tools such as Firesheep
or Droidsheep that
filter through unprotected wireless traffic.
… In order to legitimize yourself
as a good at ethical hacking, you can become a Certified
Ethical Hacker (CEH) by completing a vendor-neutral
certification course
… So as you can see, it’s
definitely possible to earn a living by ethical hacking. Although
the process to getting to that point definitely isn’t easy (nor is
for every computer guy), it could be well worth it if you’re good
at it and enjoy doing i
It's
a start. How many teachers even know all these tools, much less the
proper way to use them.
… In general, just act right.
Don’t spam or be fake. Share the good stuff and don’t overuse
one particular social network. This helpful chart
should outline a few more tidbits I thought worth passing along to
the Edudemic readers.
Free
is good!
In case you weren’t aware there are a
lot of eBooks
available on the Internet that cost nothing. If you are willing to
look, they are out there in a big way. However, finding them is not
always as easy as you’d like it to be. They tend to be scattered
around the web in different places. However, Bookresults makes it
easy to find all kinds of free
eBooks on the Internet.
… Each result has an option to
“Read Here” and “Read on New Tab.” Either way, this will
open up the file and let you read the book in just seconds. It opens
up the file in a nice eBook reader, so it’s not just a PDF on a
website. It’s incredibly easy to use, and makes for a great way to
read free books online.
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