Tag Archives: Security

You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught

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“To apologists of mass surveillance, what did Anne Frank have to hide? I ask because the person credited with popularizing the nothing-to-hide argument is none other than Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda for the Third Reich.  Minister Goebbels would have wrung his hands with delight at having this depth of data on his regime’s citizens. But this data is absolutely trivial compared to what the U.S. government actually knows about you. Thanks to William Binney and Edward Snowden, we know that the U.S. regime has for many years been secretly constructing the means to monitor and record every aspect of our lives.”

https://bananas.liberty.me/youre-a-criminal-in-a-mass-surveillance-world-how-to-not-get-caught/

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It’s Very, Very Easy for Hackers to Steal Your IRS Account

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“Long story short: You should register your IRS.gov account, because it’s frightfully easy for hackers to do it for you.  The craziest thing about this saga is just how easy it apparently was to hack into the IRS system. It’s not even hacking really, since the system is protected by so-called knowledge-based authentication (KBA). The fraudsters who broke into Kasper’s account did so by guessing some basic information about his life—information that was readily available elsewhere on the web. A security researcher can do the same thing in a matter of minutes.”

http://gizmodo.com/its-very-very-easy-for-hackers-to-steal-your-irs-accou-1694572344

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Hackers Hit the IRS and Make Off With 100K Taxpayers’ Files

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“Few government agencies routinely collect more information on every law-abiding American than the Internal Revenue Service. And by targeting the IRS, a group of seemingly sophisticated hackers has now collected their own chunk of that detailed data.  On Tuesday the IRS admitted that it had been the target of a breach that compromised 100,000 taxpayers’ files between February and the middle of this month. And though that may seem like a relatively small set of victims, the IRS says the attackers gained the full tax return transcript of the affected taxpayers, which could included a detailed dossier of their personal information including income and social security numbers.”

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/hackers-hit-irs-access-100000-taxpayers-files/

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IRS sets up dedicated cybercrime unit to combat identity theft

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“The US Internet Revenue Service has launched a new unit dedicated to tackling the rising rate of identity theft through hacking.  The US agency’s unit comprises of roughly a dozen agents, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The agents, based in Washington, will focus on cybercrime related to tax fraud, including the theft of data which is then used to collect victim tax refunds without their consent.  IRS data suggests that within the last fiscal year, over 1,000 cases of identity theft involved the loss of data through digital means.”

http://www.zdnet.com/article/irs-sets-up-dedicated-cybercrime-unit-to-combat-identity-theft/

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Creator of PGP explains why he moved his company to Switzerland

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“When Philip Zimmermann was campaigning for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s, he kept an escape plan in his back pocket. The inventor of the world’s most widely used email encryption system, Pretty Good Privacy – more commonly known as PGP – was ready to move his family from Colorado to New Zealand at a moment’s notice.  The button was never pressed and the Zimmermanns stayed put. Until this year, that is. At 61, the Internet Hall of Fame inductee and founder of three-year-old mobile encryption startup Silent Circle has just left the US for Switzerland. In the end, it was not the nuclear threat that convinced him to leave his homeland, but the surveillance arms race.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/25/philip-zimmermann-king-encryption-reveals-fears-privacy

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Surveillance Back Door Worse Than No Door

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“Tech industry giants say they are alarmed the federal government would demand back-door access to the encryption built into their products. Are they crying crocodile tears? Maybe, but the point is still a good one.  Imagine if, instead of memory chips, we were talking about your home’s back door. It most likely contains a lock. Your family members have keys. They can come and go freely while others cannot. This is how locks should work.  The FBI says it can’t do its job unless it has unimpeded access to your house, so it asks you to give it a spare key. The FBI further promises it will only use the key to enter your home in emergencies. Would you give it to them?”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36308/Back-Door-Worse-Than-No-Door/

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3D Printed Robot Cracks Combination Locks in Less than 30 Seconds

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“A well-known California hacker Samy Kamkar who is expert in cracking locks has built a 3D-printed machine, calling his gadget the ‘Combo Breaker,’ that can crack Master Lock combination padlocks – used on hundreds of thousands of school lockers – in less than 30 seconds.  A couple of weeks ago, Kamkar introduced the world how a manufacturing flaw in Master Lock combination locks can easily reveal the full combination by carefully measuring the dial interaction with the shackle in eight or fewer attempts.  The hacker has also released the plans, 3D models, and code of Combo Breaker online for free as open source.”

http://thehackernews.com/2015/05/password-combination.html

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NetUSB Driver Flaw Exposes Millions of Routers to Hacking

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“A simple but shockingly dangerous vulnerability has been uncovered in the NetUSB component, putting millions of modern routers and other embedded devices across the globe at risk of being compromised by hackers. NetUSB component is integrated into modern routers sold by some major manufacturers including D-Link, Netgear, TP-Link, ZyXEL and TrendNet.  Until now, only TP-Link addressed the vulnerability and provided a fix for the serious NetUSB vulnerability and scheduled patches for about 40 products. According to SEC Consult, the NetUSB feature was enabled on all devices checked, and the service was still running even when no USB devices were connected.”

http://thehackernews.com/2015/05/netusb-router-hacking.html

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Flawed Android Factory Reset Fails to Clear Private Data from Phones

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“If you’re planning to sell your old Android smartphone then you need to think again because there is a weakness in the Android Factory Reset option that could be exploited to recover your login credentials, text messages, emails and pictures even if you have wiped its memory clean.  Computer researchers at the University of Cambridge conducted a study on Android devices from 5 different vendors and found that more than 500 Million Android devices don’t completely erase data after the factory reset.  The computer researchers found that the data could be recovered from the Android device even if users turned on full-disk encryption.”

http://thehackernews.com/2015/05/android-factory-reset.html

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Leaked Adult Friend Finder user database still online

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“Adult Friend Finder, one of the largest online dating sites, may have been breached more than two months ago, and the sensitive files—include names, ages, email addresses, zip codes and more—are apparently still online.  British broadcaster Channel 4 reported Thursday that the website had been breached, although information regarding the breach had been trickling out in a low-key way for some time. Adult Friend Finder, which was founded in 1996, has more than 40 million members, according to its website. FriendFinder Networks says it has more than 600 million registered users across some 40,000 websites in its network.”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925872/leaked-database-of-adult-friend-finder-still-online.html

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