WebProNews

Tag: leaks

  • Jeb Bush Fixes Social Security Number Leak, but People’s Email Addresses and Names Are Still Out in the Open

    Earlier this week, The eGovernor (as the public apparently called him at some point) Jeb Bush released hundreds of thousands of emails from his tenure as governor of Florida. It was a move in the name of transparency – Jeb Bush’s transparency. But the Bush team didn’t quite think everything through, and they didn’t double-check everything before making it all public. Most importantly, the team didn’t think about how transparent thousands of Floridans wanted to be – or more aptly put, how un-transparent they wanted to be.

    So when the big email dump went live, there was no redaction. Not a single bit. People’s email address, names, and in some case home addresses and telephone numbers were made public, along with the content of whatever email correspondence they had with the governor.

    But that wasn’t all. The Bush email dump also exposed around 13,000 social security numbers – most of which were hidden in a spreadsheet on a PowerPoint slide attached to a 2003 email.

    In his attempt to promote transparency, Jeb Bush had pretty much doxxed a good chunk of Florida.

    Now, it turns out, Jeb Bush and crew have fixed the most egregious error in the email project. According to the Guardian, the team has successfully redacted the tens of thousands of exposed social security numbers – per a Bush spokeswoman.

    But that’s it. All of the rest of it still remains – the email addresses, the names, the home addresses, the telephone numbers. None of this has been redacted.

    I’m not sure what kind of expectation of privacy these Floridians had when emailing a public figure – especially when it’s the governor. But it doesn’t take a huge leap to see how this could be problematic. Maybe May Whitfield of Boca Raton isn’t too thrilled that everyone can now see how much she didn’t want that Islamic center built in her neighborhood. Also, if you want to tell Mrs. Whitfield just how racist she is, well look – there’s her email!

    Redacting the social security numbers is a no-brainer, as revealing those likely violated state privacy laws. But think about the implications of the rest of the now publicly-available information. Shouldn’t Jeb Bush and company redact the names and email addresses of the 300,000+ emails in the archive?

  • Star Wars: Warwick Davis Returning; Secret Production Pics Leaked

    The latest Star Wars: Episode VII news was probably going along as the J.J. Abrams’ team expected. The official Star Wars YouTube page carried a cute video announcing that Warwick Davis would be returning to the Star Wars lineup.

    The role Davis will play has not been disclosed, but he has previously played Wicket, an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, as well as three roles in Phantom Menace.

    So far, so good. Then came The Leak.

    According to Entertainment Weekly, an Imageshack image hosting account with the handle “themilleniumfalcon” posted 32 concept drawings from the Star Wars VII production that were apparently never meant for public consumption. (The account is now closed.)

    While Entertainment Weekly refrained from posting the images themselves, they did mull over some of the tidbits that those drawings might reveal to a studious Star Wars fan.

    If those concept drawings are indeed hints of things to come in the new installment, it looks like we haven’t seen the last of Darth Vader. Of course, Vader/Anakin’s remains were burned on a funeral pyre at the end of Return of the Jedi. But a character that EW describes as “a sinister cyborg in a black cloak” is seen in the drawings examining the charred remains of Vader’s body armor, including his helmet.

    The drawings also reveal Chewbacca with a mechanical hand/paw. They also show a character called “Montross”, an old cyborg — part human, part robotic — sitting at a bar. There is some speculation that this may be a character to be played by actor Max von Sydow.

    There are some other character sketches, and some location and setting concepts sketched out. The Episode VII page on IMDB still reveals nothing more than the most obvious cast credits of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2. Other actors named but not paired with a character name include Gwendoline Christie from Game of Thrones, Domnhall Gleeson from the Harry Potter films, Adam Driver from Girls, Andy Serkis from the Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes films, and several up and coming young actors.

    Star Wars: Episode VII will be out in theaters on Dec. 18, 2015.

    Oh, and here’s that Warwick Davis video.

  • New iPads ‘Leaked’ Include iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3

    Well, there are the new iPads.

    Apple has done exactly what it wanted screwed up a bit and inadvertently unveiled the new line of iPads.

    What you see above is a screenshot from the iPad User Guide For iO8, an ebook available in iTunes right now. Screenshots from the book show an ‘iPad Air 2’ and an ‘iPad Mini 3’, both of which Apple was expected to unveil at their big iPad event – slated for Thursday.

    The “leak”, apart from confirming the new names of the devices, also shows both new iPads with the much-rumored Touch ID home button and Burst Mode.

    What you don’t see is the rumored giant iPad (12.9-inch). Last week we heard that iPad would be delayed thanks to high demand for the new iPhones, which Apple just unveiled last month.

    As 9to5 Mac, who was the first to spot this, points out, the timing of this leak is rather convenient – considering Google just announced a new Nexus 9 tablet and Nexus 6 phone.

    Anyway, you’ll see it all – probably including a gold iPad, new iMacs, and OS X Yosemite – when the event kicks off tomorrow. You can watch it online, if Apple can get its shit together.

    Image via Apple

  • Snapchat Photo Hack, If Real, Wasn’t Snapchat’s Fault (Says Snapchat)

    Photos taken and transmitted via Snapchat may or may not have leaked on Thursday, but if they did, Snapchat assures you that its servers were never breached and it’s the fault of unauthorized third-party apps.

    Early Friday, Business Insider reported on “The Snappening”, a supposedly massive Snapchat hack that includes upward of 200,000 photos. The hack was reportedly organized and disseminated on 4chan, with databases of the stolen photos popping up online.

    Apparently, the leak has been in the works for some time.

    Snapchat has responded, blaming banned third-party apps for the security breach.

    “We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed,” said Snapchat.

    Reports vary, but apps like SnapSave and SnapSaved.com are said to be the culprits. These both allow Snapchat users to save photos – something the regular Snapchat app prohibits. Business Insider points out the SnapSaved.com now redirects to a Danish e-commerce site. That’s obviously a bit fishy.

    The initial report of “The Snappening” seems to have originated from a blog run by a guy named Kenny Withers, who claims to be a social media marketer. He posted some of the nude images, and well as various 4chan threads concerning the leaks.

    So, is this a real leak? Some have their doubts. This reddit thread pretty much sums up those doubts – mainly that most of these so-called “leaked” images have existed for some time and that if anything, this could be another attempt to make 4chan look bad in the wake of the celebrity nude leak “The Fappening”.

    But Snapchat’s statement carries an air of certainty regarding there at least being some sort of breach – even if the company isn’t taking responsibility for it.

    If hundreds of thousands of Snapchat photos were in fact stolen from a third-party app, there’s likely a ton of images of underage users – which poses its own set of problems apart from the general theft of private photos. We’ll update when we learn more about the alleged leak, but in the meantime, if you use Snapchat, you might want to be extra careful about the third-party apps you use.

    And for Snapchat, this is a bad time to be embroiled in a security scandal.

    Image via Snapchat, Twitter

  • Instagram Bolt? Leak Hints at New Photo Messaging App

    It looks like Instagram may have accidentally spilled the beans on a new photo messaging app, titled “Bolt.”

    A banner notification was spotted by a handful of Instagram for Android users that said “Introducing Bolt – one tap photo messaging.” It quickly disappeared, but not before a couple of users snapped some screenshots.

    The in-stream banner was only up for a few minutes, and while it was up it pointed users to a dead link in the Google Play Store.

    The Verge speculates that Bolt could be Instagram’s Snapchat competitor, or maybe Facebook’s attempt to tap into the “one tap” photo messaging world currently inhabited by apps like Taptalk.

    If this was in fact an accidental app leak, it wouldn’t be the first for Facebook (or a Facebook-owned company, more specifically) in recent memory. Whatever Instagram Bolt turns out to be or not to be, let’s just hope it has a reason to exist.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • iPhone 6 Battery Reportedly Leaked in New Photo

    Apple’s next iPhone is still months away from being announced but the rumor mill surrounding the device is, as always, going strong. This week tech blogs hit the jackpot as new details about the iPhone 6 and even photos of some of the device’s components were leaked online.

    Earlier this week a photo leaked through China’s Weibo platform seemed to confirm that the next iPhone will be significantly larger than even the iPhone 5S. The image purportedly shows the iPhone 6’s 4.7-inch screen in comparison with an iPhone 5.

    Now another photo has surfaced showing what appears to be the battery for the iPhone 6. French website nowhereelse.fr today published a photo it claims comes from a Taiwanese website. The photo shows what appears to be batteries destined for the inside of iPhone 6 smartphones.

    iPhone 6 batteries

    Judging from the date of the battery photo leaks for last year’s iPhone 5S in relation to that smartphone’s announcement, nowherelese.fr estimates that Apple could be ready to announce the iPhone 6 in as little as three months. The publication also points out that the batteries in the photo are slightly different in design from those found in the iPhone 5S, which could signal a significant internal redesign of the iPhone 6 compared to previous iPhones.

    In addition to the new photo leaks, new hardware information about the iPhone 6 has also hit the web recently. Last week a KGI securities analyst revealed supply chain research showing that the iPhone 6 will have a 1334 x 750 “Retina” display, a newly-branded A8 processor, 1GB of memory, and a significantly slimmer bezel. Apple may also be including NFC in the device and could even offer a larger 5.5-inch version of the iPhone.

    Of course, all of this new tech could come at a price. A Jefferies & Co. analyst this week weighed in on the issue, estimating that Apple is looking to charge mobile providers $100 more for the iPhone 6 than the company charged for other yearly iPhone upgrades.

    Image via nowhereelse.fr

  • Assassin’s Creed Unity Announced For PS4, Xbox One And PC

    It’s another year and that means another Assassin’s Creed game is coming our way. Unlike last year, however, this year will reportedly see two Assassin’s Creed games. One will be released on the PS4, Xbox One and PC while the other will be released on the PS3 and Xbox 360. A tipster leaked the former to Kotaku and that has forced Ubisoft’s hand resulting in the announcement of the next Assassin’s Creed game.

    Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Unity over the weekend – the game is slated for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It will feature a new protagonist named Arno and will be set in Paris. The time period is the French Revolution if the guillotine didn’t give it away. According to Nicholas Gigante over at The Examiner, the game will also do away with competitive multiplayer in favor of four player co-op. Beyond that, we know nothing else about Unity.

    By moving exclusively to next gen, Assassin’s Creed Unity will be able to offer what the last game in the series did not – true next gen visuals and features. Those who played Black Flag on the PS4, Xbox One or PC can’t deny that it’s a pretty game, but they also can’t deny that it was just a prettied up last gen title. By focusing on current gen consoles, the next game will be able to go all out in the visual department. It’s hard to tell if the first trailer for Unity is in-game, but it’s incredibly promising if it is:

    So, what about the other Assassin’s Creed title intended for last gen consoles? The game is reportedly nicknamed Comet and that’s all we know. The two games will likely be set during the same time period, but they’ll probably star different characters. The game will also likely tie into Unity and be released at a later date on next-gen consoles as a hi-res port. This is all merely conjecture though based upon Ubisoft’s past actions in regards to Assassin’s Creed spinoffs.

    We’ll likely learn more about both games in the coming months with a main reveal intended for E3. It’s obvious that Ubisoft wasn’t expecting to reveal the game this soon so it’s likely scrambling to get some information out to fans wanting to know more.

    Image via AssassinsCreed/YouTube

  • HTC M8 Home Screen Leaked On Twitter

    Earlier this week, a number of leaks on Twitter gave us our first look at the HTC One successor – the HTC M8. The new device is expected to look a lot like the HTC One, but will be upgraded with much better specs. Now a new leak has given us a better look at the new home screen.

    The ever reliable @evleaks has shared what appears to be the home screen for the HTC M8. It’s readily apparent that HTC won’t be making any significant changes to its software with its newest hardware as BlinkFeed looks largely the same. In fact, the only real difference is that the HTC M8 will be the first HTC device with on-screen navigation buttons.

    According to Droid-Life, it appears that the HTC M8 is running Android 4.4, or KitKat. They say it’s none too surprising considering that the HTC One has already been upgraded to the latest version of Android on a number of carriers.

    So, when can we expect to see the HTC M8 or even learn its real name? According to @evleaks, HTC will be holding a New York launch event in late March. That puts the HTC M8 about one year and a month after the reveal of last year’s HTC One. The One didn’t make it to carriers until April though so a March reveal may push the M8’s launch into May.

    Image via @evleaks/Twitter

  • HTC One Successor Leaked Via Twitter [Rumor]

    The HTC One was one of the best reviewed phones of 2013, but it wasn’t anywhere near the best selling. Regardless, HTC will be back at it again in 2014 with a successor codenamed M8. We don’t know much about the device just yet, but a recent leak seems to suggest that it will be very similar to the award winning design of last year’s HTC One.

    Twitter user @HTCFamily_RU recently tweeted out what they claim to be the backplate for the HTC M8. The device, which looks very similar to the One, features a dual-LED flash and two rear-facing cameras.

    One of the few complaints brought up against the original HTC One was that its rear camera was kind of awful. The company claimed the HTC One used an UltraPixel camera, but it was just a 4MP camera in reality. Sure, UltraPixel technology allowed it to capture more detail in low light, but it was still captured lower resolution photos than the competition. That probably won’t change with the M8, but the second rear camera could make some interesting shots possible.

    As for the specs, our pal at @evleaks has the scoop:

    With the new dual rear camera setup and upgraded specs, the HTC M8 should be what fans of the HTC One want – another HTC One with better specs. Samsung has been doing the same thing for years with its Galaxy S line of flagship devices and it only makes sense that HTC continue to do the same now that it has a popular design loved by its few fans. With an increased marketing push in 2014, it may even be able to bring in new fans who prefer the solid feel of aluminum over plastic.

    [h/t: Droid-Life]
    Image via @HTCFamily_RU

  • WashPost: NSA is Collecting Your Friends Lists

    According to the Washington Post‘s latest documents provided by ex-contractor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency routinely “harvests” the contact lists from email accounts, social media accounts, and instant messengers, some of which belong to American citizens.

    This is the first revelation of any kind of metadata surveillance that intercepts address books and “buddy lists.” The data is intercepted as the platforms carrying the emails and instant messages move between global data links, such as when a message is sent or when a user logs in or out.

    The collection of contact lists does not target any individual users; instead, the NSA targets a percentage of the global population’s internet accounts, and then analyzes collected data to see hidden connections and draw a map of relationships in a fraction of the time it would take without the internet.

    The NSA’s buddy list collection program nets half a million buddy lists per day from live messenger services and from the inboxes of web-based emails. In a single day in 2012, the NSA harvested 444,743 Yahoo contact lists, 105,068 Hotmail contact lists, 82,857 Facebook friend lists, 33,697 Gmail contact lists, and 22,881 from other providers. These figures are described by the NSA document as also being a typical daily intake.

    In an attempt to reassure Americans that their online life is not tracked by NSA computers, spokesman Shawn Turner for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (which oversees the NSA) told the Washington Post that “[The NSA] is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets like terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers. We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans. [Attorney General Eric Holder has stipulated that the NSA must] minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination [of data that I.D.’s Americans].”

    It was revealed in June that the NSA scrapes nearly every U.S. call record in a different data analysis program, but NSA czar Keith B. Alexander defended the bulk collection of such data when he said “You need the haystack to find the needle.”

    If you want to read the full WashPost story, you can find it here.

    [Image via NSA.gov]

  • Is This What The iPhone 5S Looks Like? [Rumor]

    At 1 p.m. EST today, Apple will unveil its latest iPhone to the world. It’s accepted at this point that the phone will be called the iPhone 5S, and will look very similar to the current iPhone 5. What we don’t know is what the iPhone 5S actually looks like, but a new leak may have provided the answer.

    French Web site nowhereelse.fr has shared a render of the iPhone 5S that it obtained from one of its sources. The image looks legitimate enough, and seems to match up pretty well with what we’ve heard about the device thus far.

    The major difference between the iPhone 5 and the 5S is that it now has a circular home button. The render also shows that the home button now doubles as a Touch ID sensor. If true, the below render confirms the oft-rumored fingerprint sensor.

    Is This What The iPhone 5S Looks Like?

    Whether or not this turns out to be the iPhone 5S, you can expect something that looks very similar to the iPhone 5. It will probably receive a bump in specs, but nothing that extraordinary. By most accounts, it’s looking like the star of the show will be the new fingerprint sensor. The company called NFC a fad back in June so it will have to prove to us today that its inclusion of a fingerprint sensor isn’t just that – a fad destined for irrelevance.

    [h/t: Engadget]
    [Image: nowhereelse.fr]

  • NSA Can Break Internet Encryption Technologies

    The NSA can see pretty much everything you do online as long as it’s not encrypted. That’s at least what a Snowden leak from last month claimed. The news spurred more people and businesses to sign up for more encryption services, but a new leak suggests that their efforts may have been all for naught.

    The Guardian, in collaboration with The New York Times and ProPublica, report that the NSA employs a number of programs to break through the encryption software used everyday to protect the privacy of Internet users. These programs range from the use of super computers in decrypting files to outright paying companies to insert vulnerabilities into their own software.

    It should be noted before going any further that the NSA sees encryption and those who use it as adversaries to its mission. In one of the documents provided by Snowden, the NSA says that it’s able to use exploits in encryption software to access what “consumers and other adversaries” think is secure data.

    Let that sink in it for a moment.

    The NSA, an agency that’s charged with protecting the American people, refers to those its sworn to protect as adversaries. If the document had read “consumers and adversaries,” it would have been questionable, but fine. The addition of the “other” confirms a previous leak that revealed the NSA automatically assumes any encrypted data is up to no good.

    So, how does the NSA gain access to encrypted data? The most prominent method is the one used by pretty much every other hacker on the planet – brute force alongside new decryption techniques. It appears that the NSA worked alongside their British counterparts at the GCHQ on two programs – Bullrun and Edgehill respectively – to break through the encryption used in major communication systems, including Gmail.

    More worrisome, however, are the back room deals negotiated by the NSA to ensure that it doesn’t even have to break through the encryption in the first place. The documents point to a top secret program, which costs $250 million a year, where the NSA works with “US and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products’ designs.” In other words, the NSA pays companies to insert backdoors into their own software. Some of the participants are even encryption companies that knowingly insert exploits into their own software so the NSA can access data sent via their services.

    The NSA also has a hand in influencing global encryption standards. The documents state that the agency secretly had its draft of encryption standards accepted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. These are the bare minimum security standards that any Internet company worth their salt abides by, and the NSA can just blow right through said standards on account of it writing them.

    So, is there anything that the NSA can’t peer into? Well, there are new encryption tools being developed every day. The NSA makes a note of this by saying that it can’t break through every encryption technology just yet. We don’t know what those encryption technologies are, but it’s safe to assume that LavaBit may have been one of them.

    Even more worrisome than the NSA having access to encrypted information is the existence of these backdoors in the first place. Any security researcher will tell you that backdoors are an incredibly bad idea that do more harm than good. What happens when malicious hackers find their way into the backdoors intended for government officials? Nothing good, that’s what.

    President Obama and defenders of the NSA claim that the agency is needed to protect us from the bad guys. Those bad guys are increasingly turning to cyberwarfare where such back doors are rather convenient for those who would launch cyber attacks that can cause real harm to people who use the Internet for everything from banking to sharing personal information. The NSA may be trying to secure America from foreign threats, but in doing so is making the Internet less secure. That’s a problem and one that needs to be addressed by Obama’s “independent” panel of experts that will examine the NSA’s practices over the coming months.

    [Image: The Guardian]

  • Osama bin Laden Raid: New Details Leaked

    While President Barack Obama’s administration prepares to annually declassify the number of people and businesses covered by National Security Agency surveillance, the Washington Post this week divulged details on NSA targeting that helped exterminate al-Qa’ida head honcho Osama bin Laden. The revelation comes from classified documents leaked by NSA-contractor-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden; the documents detail US intelligence budgets for 2013 and only make brief reference to the events surrounding the offensive.

    The May 2011 assault on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in which Bin Laden was killed, is marked as a banner success for US intelligence and the Obama administration. The Post article describes how the documents exposed some of the methods employed by the various agencies involved, including a group of satellites aimed at Pakistan in order to collect electronic and signals intelligence about al-Qa’ida whereabouts. Leading up to the operation, NSA tracked cell phone use of al-Qa’ida operatives and the National Reconnaissance Office collected almost 400 images of the location. Central Intelligence Agency analysts combined that data with other reporting to locate Bin Laden’s hideout. A team of US Navy SEALs conducted the strike and, in the hours afterward, Defense Intelligence Agency analysts confirmed the corpse indeed was Bin Laden. Despite employing the full arsenal of tools and techniques, intelligence provides analysis (not evidence), and US intelligence officials reported to the President that the odds were 40/60 that Bin Laden would be present.

    Flown up with the satellites, an RQ-170 stealth drone collected electronic transmissions and the CIA recruited individuals to try using DNA evidence to identify Bin Laden or his relatives. A Pakistani doctor and public health workers attempted to obtain blood samples through a vaccination program.

    The doctor, Shakil Afridi, is currently confined in a Peshawar jail while awaiting a new trial. Thursday, a Pakistani appeals court overturned a 33-year jail sentence convicting the doctor of “conspiring against the state” by providing funds and medical help to a banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam. Afridi denies the charges.

    Washington has been vocal about Afridi’s heroism in the Bin Laden raids and Congress withheld $33 million in aid (assigning $1 million per year of Afridi’s original sentence). Islamabad considers the US operation illegal, which puts a spotlight on Pakistani officials for not taking action, and they consider the doctor a traitor for his involvement. Health workers and vaccination teams have been the victims of increased threats and even killings in the aftermath.

    UK officials reported on Friday that the Snowden-leaked documents confiscated this week at Heathrow airport include over 58,000 classified British files. The documents apparently contain revealing, identifying details of British intelligence workers in-country and abroad. London assesses, based on Snowden’s travel record, that the data was exposed to foreign governments. The materials were obtained under special terrorism authorities from David Miranda who was en route to Brazil. Miranda is the boyfriend of Glen Greenwald, British journalist and the mouthpiece for most of Snowden’s leaks.

    [Image via US Government.]

  • Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, & The UK Fiasco

    The last few days have been quite trying for those reporters at the Guardian that are trying to cover the Edward Snowden NSA story with any semblance of integrity. For anyone who may not have been following the entirety of this story, this will sum up events as they occurred so far.

    When it comes to our side of the sea, the Guardian’s U.S. outlet has billed itself as the number one place to go when it comes to information coming from Edward Snowden about NSA secrets. With Edward Snowden becoming everything short of an international incident, it was clear that anyone choosing to associate with him might find themselves targeted.

    On Sunday, a viral column by Glenn Greenwald told a chilling story about his partner, David Miranda, being detained for 9 hours at Heathrow Airport under a UK statute that says they can detain anyone they want “to determine whether that person is or has been involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” Miranda was travelling through the UK to return to his and Greenwald’s home in Rio de Janeiro with the fruits of a meeting with a contact in Berlin.

    Greenwald cited a document of statistics from the UK government that shows that fewer than three people in 10,000 get detained for questioning in this manner, and that 97 percent of those questioning sessions lasted less than 60 minutes. Greenwald was floundered until he realized that they were questioning Miranda about the NSA reporting being done by the Guardian in concert with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, their associate from Berlin.

    At this point, the journalist in all of us should be a little aggravated. Greenwald said that Miranda was held for the full 9 hours, and that the UK “completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop ‘the terrorists,’ and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name.” Greenwald even took to Twitter about the ordeal, criticizing misquotations and clarifying:

    Greenwald felt personally targeted for the journalism he and his partner were performing, and he should. As he said in his column, “Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.”

    A second column from the Guardian, this one published just yesterday, goes into detail about the ramifications of stopping David Miranda under the UK’s Schedule 7: like the ‘enemy combatants’ who await a trial that won’t happen in Guantanamo Bay, individuals stopped under Schedule 7 have no right to representation and may have their property taken for a week.

    The column’s author, Alan Rusbridger, alleges that the international outrage sparked by Miranda’s detention “rightly caused international dismay because it feeds into a perception that the US and UK governments – while claiming to welcome the debate around state surveillance started by Snowden – are also intent on stemming the tide of leaks and on pursuing the whistleblower with a vengeance. That perception is right.”

    Rusbridger then told an anecdote about a series of conversations with an official representative of the prime minister. This person, through a series of phone calls and meetings, demanded in a mafioso manner that the Guardian return or destroy all materials related to Snowden’s leaks because the media “had your debate [and] there’s no need to write any more.” The government official threatened to use legal means to shut down the reporting, and when Rusbridger said that international reporting would prevent such actions, a pair of Government Communications Headquarters agents were sent to the Guardian’s New York office to watch the destruction of hard drives and computers containing the Snowden files.

    “We can call off the black helicopters,” Rusbridger said one of the men quipped, but the reporting on the NSA and Snowden’s leaks will continue, with Greenwald, et al vowing to remain stoic. When Greenwald reunited with Miranda in Rio de Janeiro, the team promised to write more reports on England, the English espionage system, and in general making the UK regret their decision.

    The British Home Office refused comment on the entire incident.

  • This Is What A Legend Of Zelda Film Might Have Looked Like

    Nintendo doesn’t exactly like the idea of letting others make movies based on their properties. I may like the Super Mario Bros. movie, but plenty of people think it’s the worst film ever made. Since then, we haven’t heard a peep from Nintendo regarding any movies based on their properties, except for that Animal Crossing anime film.

    Of course, Nintendo’s reluctance to license its properties to filmmakers doesn’t mean that said filmmakers have just given up on the idea of films based on Mario, The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. In fact, a pitch from Imagi Studios shows what a Legend of Zelda film would look like under their direction:

    “Zelda” teaser from Adam3D on Vimeo.

    According to Kotaku, the above pitch was created in 2007 in the hopes of attaining the rights from Nintendo. They were obviously unsuccessful. It is interesting, however, to see what could have been. The animators at Imagi Studios stayed pretty faithful to the designs of both Link and Zelda, but Ganondorf received a major redesign.

    Unfortunately, the pitch doesn’t tell us much else about Imagi’s idea for a Legend of Zelda film. Would they keep Link silent, or would they try try to add a voice to the stoic Hylian hero? We’ll never know, and part of me feels like that’s a good thing.

  • Edward Snowden Offered a Job at Russian Social Network VK

    Today, we got news that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had been granted temporary asylum in Russia. That meant that he could leave the airport that he’d been holed up in since whole thing began (which he did, promptly). He’ll be able to live in Russia for a year, and will have to have his asylum request renewed after that – if he chooses to stay in Russia.

    So, what now?

    Well, if he finds himself in need of work (once he comes out of hiding, which could be a while), one Russian tech giant is willing to offer him a job.

    VK (VKontakte) founder and CEO Pavel Durov has offered Snowden a job at his social network – as a security specialist. VK is the second most popular social network in Europe (behind Facebook), and the most popular in Russia. Here’s what Durov had to say in a public post on VK this morning:

    Here’s what it looks like once it’s beeb put through Google Translate and cleaned up:

    Today Edward Snowden – a man who denounced the crimes of U.S. intelligence against citizens of the world – has received temporary asylum in Russia. At such moments, you feel proud of our country and regret the U.S. policy – a country committed to the principles on which it was once built. I invite Edward to St. Petersburg and will be happy if he decides to fill up a stellar team of programmers at VKontakte. In the end, there is no more popular European Internet company than VK. I think Edward might be interested in protecting the personal data of millions of our users.

    So, you know, at least Snowden has that option.

    [VK via GigaOm]

  • Bradley Manning Verdict Gets The NMA Treatment

    Bradley Manning, the whistleblower arrested for handing over classified Army documents to WikiLeaks, was found not guilty of aiding the enemy. He was, however, found guilty of pretty much everything else. While we wait for the sentencing to begin, let’s take a look at what our favorite Taiwanese animators have to say about it.

    Unsurprisingly, NMA is spot on with its satirical analysis. The press can breathe a sigh of relief about Manning being found not guilty of aiding the enemy, but being found guilty of espionage will definitely make some investigative journalists and their sources more wary. They’re probably worried that Obama will shove a whistle up their ass.

    In all seriousness, the Manning verdict does set some pretty worrisome precedents. It gives Edward Snowden an even better reason to avoid the U.S. and settle down in Russia.

  • New Leak Suggests NSA Can See Everything You Do Online

    In early June, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed PRISM to the world. The secret NSA program allows the agency to collect communications from major tech companies. Various programs revealed since then have all been about streamlining that data collection. The latest leak, however, shows that the NSA has far more power than previously thought.

    The Guardian reports today that it has obtained slides that detail a NSA program called XKeyscore. The program, much like PRISM, allows the agency to collect the Internet communications of foreign and domestic targets. What makes this latest leak so worrisome, however, is that it seems to be held to even less oversight than the other surveillance programs.

    Before we get into that, let’s take a look at what XKeyscore is. According to training documents obtained by The Guardian, the NSA says XKeyscore can snoop on “nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet.” It does this through a collection of 700 servers around the world that pick up pretty much everything anybody does online. Analysts can then enter something as simple as an email address or an IP address, and be looking through everything the NSA has on that person.

    So, what kind of information can XKeyscore pick up? Through the use of plug-ins, NSA analysts can obtain the following information:

    New Leaks Suggest The NSA Can See Everything You Do Online

    In the above document, you see that XKeyscore really can see everything you do online. It picks up every email address, every file, every Web site and even every online chat a target engages in during an online session. The analyst can then go through these files one by one looking for specific information. In fact, the documents show that it’s as simple as looking through emails for a subject line.

    Another tool revealed in the leak is called the DNI Presenter. It allows an analyst to read through Facebook chats or private messages using XKeyscore. All they have to do is enter the Facebook user name and a date range to see every message and chat during that time.

    The NSA can also search for people based on search terms entered into specific Web sites. The example shows how an analyst could search for anybody looking for “Musharraf” on BBC. It’s pretty obvious that it can also be used to look for those searching for specific keywords on Google, Bing or any other search engine.

    All of this data collection has led to the NSA storing billions of “call events” in its database. A NSA report from 2007 said it had stored 850 billion “call events” and 150 billion Internet records, with one to two billion more records being added each day. The NSA can’t hold all that data in one database so it separates the interesting data from the incidental data, and stores it in a separate server that can hold on to it for up to five years.

    So, what kind of oversight is this program subject to? Well, the NSA isn’t required to obtain a warrant from the FISA court to do searches of its database. In fact, the analyst can conduct searches on anybody as long as they know some identifying information.

    In its defense, the NSA told The Guardian that its “activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests.” The agency also said that “allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. … In addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate misuse from occurring.”

    That all sounds well and good, but is XKeyscore actually effective? The NSA certainly seems to think so:

    New Leak Suggests NSA Can See Everything You Do Online

    Others might not be as easily convinced.

  • Edward Snowden May Finally Be Able To Enter Russia [Report]

    One month ago, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden arrived in Russia from Hong Kong after leaking numerous secret NSA spy programs to the press. Since then, he’s been confined to the transit zone of the Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport as the United States invalidated his passport. Now it appears that may finally be able to leave.

    RT reports that Snowden has finally been granted temporary entry into Russia. Sources with knowledge of the situation say that Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, will bring him the papers he needs to leave the airport this morning.

    It should be noted that Snowden hasn’t been granted asylum just yet. Instead, he’s only been granted temporary entry into the country while the Russian government considers his asylum request. A final decision will probably be made within three months. After that, Snowden will either be granted asylum, or his request will be rejected. If that happens, he has the option to appeal the decision to the courts.

    So, what will Snowden do upon leaving the airport? According to his lawyer, he plans to live and work in Russia for a short time. With his current papers, he can live anywhere in Russia. If he’s granted asylum, he will have all the rights of a Russian citizen and therefore have access to even more resources.

    Of course, the U.S. isn’t going to be very happy about this. The Obama administration has made it clear that it wants to bring Snowden home to face charges under the Espionage Act for leaking classified NSA documents. Snowden obviously doesn’t want that as he fears he’ll be subjected to torture and possibly the death penalty if he were to return to the U.S.

    For now though, Snowden will remain in Russia and be reasonably safe from the U.S. authorities. Sure, the CIA could capture him in Russia, but doing so would strain the already brittle relationship between Russia and the U.S. In all honesty, Russia is probably the best place for Snowden at the moment as the U.S. will not try anything as long as he stays in the country.

  • Motorola’s Moto X Leaked Ahead Of August Reveal

    Motorola is working on something big with Google. The phone – called the Moto X – represents the first major device launch since the company was bought by Google. The device has been shrouded in mystery for some time, but recent leaks have revealed pretty much everything about it.

    You may remember seeing the leak from last week that showed video of the Moto X in action. Now thanks to evleaks, we have a high quality press render of the device in white:

    Motorola's Moto X Leaked Ahead Of August Reveal

    So, what does it look like on the inside? Android Police found that the Moto X will come equipped with a dual-core Qualcomm S4 Pro CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch 1184×720 display, 10.5MP rear camera, 2.1MP front camera, 16GB of internal memory and Android 4.2.2. Of course, it will probably be upgraded to Android 4.3 in the near future.

    All in all, we’re looking at a decent mid-range smartphone. Its true claim to fame are the sensors that Motorola says will allow users to interact with their phone in all new ways. Even with the advanced sensor tech, it’s looking like Google is targeting the cost conscious consumer with its first major smartphone from Motorola. There’s no price yet, but it will most likely be pretty affordable.

    So, when will you finally be able to get your hands on the Moto X? Motorola is unveiling the phone on August 1. It’s not of the question to think that a launch would come later that month. Motorola has to compete with the already well established Galaxy S4 and HTC One, and waiting any longer would only hurt its prospects.

  • This Is What The New Nexus 7 Looks Like

    This Is What The New Nexus 7 Looks Like

    Later this week, Google will be hosting an event with Android and Chrome boss Sundar Pichai. It’s pretty much a given that he’ll announce something related to Android, and some think that something may be the new Nexus 7.

    Everyone’s favorite tech leaker, evleaks, now has the official press render of the new Nexus 7 up. The leak doesn’t confirm if Google will be showing off the new tablet this week, but the existence of a press render strongly suggests that we’ll be seeing it very soon:

    This Is What The New Nexus 7 Looks Like

    As you can see, Google has made a number of noticeable changes to the design this time around. For starters, it finally got ride of those annoying rubber dimples on the back on the back of the device. The Nexus logo is now vertical across the back instead of horizontal as well. It’s also hard not to miss the inclusion of a rear-facing camera.

    As for the specs, the new Nexus 7 will reportedly sport a 1.5 GHz S4 Pro CPU, a 7-inch 1920×1200 display, a 5MP rear camera, a 1.2MP front camera, 16 or 32GB of storage and Android 4.3. Unfortunately, like the original Nexus 7, it does not have a microSD slot so you’re stuck with whatever storage size you go with.

    The fancier specs will come at a cost, however, as the new Nexus 7 will be a bit more expensive than the current model. The 16GB model will reportedly retail for $229 and the 32GB model will retail for $269. As for availability, a leaked Best Buy ad shows the new Nexus 7 going on sale July 30. It’s not known, however, if this is the universal launch date, or if Google will ship the device from its own Play store earlier. Either way, we’ll probably find out this Wednesday.

    [h/t: DroidLife]