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NSA Whistleblower: Wiretaps Were Combined with Credit Card Records of U.S. Citizens

rosepena — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:14:50 +0000

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NSA Whistleblower: Wiretaps Were Combined with Credit Card Records of U.S. Citizens

By Kim Zetter January 23, 2009 | 7:00:00 AMCategories: NSA, Surveillance

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as “tens of thousands” of other Americans.

Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.

“This [information] could sit there for ten years and then potentially it marries up with something else and ten years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won’t have a clue why,” Tice said.

In most cases, the person would have no discernible link to terrorist organizations that would justify the initial data mining or their inclusion in the database.

“This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream-up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate,” Tice said. “And once that information gets to the NSA, and they start to put it through the filters there . . . and they start looking for word-recognition, if someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says ‘potential terrorist’.”

The revelation that the NSA was involved in data mining isn’t new. The infamous 2004 hospital showdown between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General James Comey over the legality of a government surveillance program involved the data mining of massive databases, according to a 2007 New York Times article.

But there was always a slight possibility, despite the suspicions of many critics, that the NSA’s data mining involved only people who were legitimately suspected of connections to terrorists overseas, as the Bush Administration staunchly maintained about its domestic phone wiretapping program.

“There’s no spying on Americans,” former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell insisted to the New Yorker last year.

But Tice’s assertions this week contradict these claims.

Is Your Family Ready For An Emergency or Natural Disaster?

rosepena — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:03:28 +0000

As winter storms here in Ontario have once again illustrated, it’s always a good idea to be prepared for an emergency. We’re big on this concept at Wired, having put out a few emergency guides like How To Survive a Power Blackout and The Smarter Emergency Kit.

But, I figure the US Department of Homeland Security probably knows a little more about this area than we do. They tipped me off that as part of the “Ready” Campaign (designed to help families prepare for disasters), Homeland Security has launched a new, family-oriented Ready America web site (co-sponsored by the Ad Council).

The site includes a wealth of planning resources and includes aspects that are frequently left out of typical emergency preparedness guides. For example, there are forms for preparing emergency contact information for your family so that friends and relatives know how to reach you and where to find you (other than at your home) in the event of an emergency. An online tool walks you through the process of creating a family emergency plan. A wide range of PDF publications are available for download, including an emergency supply list, information for pet owners and emergency planning information for businesses. There are also kid-focused documents available, including an activity book that introduces children to the concept of being prepared for a disaster without being overly alarming. Instructional videos are provided and a video blog encourages people who have experienced an emergency situation to share their story with others.

A widget that can be embedded on other sites acts as a hub for emergency information: FEMA news feed, National Weather Service warnings, emergency contact information for all states and even FEMA and Ready Twitter feeds.

This is a comprehensive site for emergency planning, and you would expect that from Homeland Security, but the focus on family preparedness makes it especially useful. While it’s obviously targeted at US residents, most of this information and advice is applicable anywhere.

None of us likes to fixate on emergencies and natural disasters, but being prepared is just common sense. And if you have a family, your job is a little more complicated, with a lot more at stake. It’s well worth checking out Ready America to see if there’s anything you may have overlooked in your own planning.

Is Your Family Ready For An Emergency or Natural Disaster? | Geekdad from Wired.com.

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Building a better spam-blocking CAPTCHA

rosepena — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:54:55 +0000

January 23, 2009 (Computerworld) How do you let people create user accounts or post comments on your Web site without letting spam bots in? Simple — make your users prove they’re human. Many Web sites use CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) technology to try to tell the bots from the people.

CAPTCHA’s idea is simple enough. It presents users with an image showing an obfuscated string of letters that they must type in to get an e-mail or social networking account, for instance, or to enter a comment on an online forum. The theory is that only humans can decipher the letters hidden in the image and type in the correct code, and for a time it was an effective tool to keep the bots out.

A basic CAPTCHA

But while no one has yet come up with a computer that can fool people into thinking it’s another person, computers are great at fooling other computers. These days, malware makers and spammers regularly trick the CAPTCHA systems at big-name Web sites such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Craigslist, and use these sites to automate their attacks.

So what can we do? Can CAPTCHA be saved?

The rise and fall of CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA was created in 2000 by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, and by 2007, the technology was being used almost everywhere on the Web. For example, if you try to leave a comment on this story, you’ll need to jump through a CAPTCHA hoop before you can leave a message.

Unfortunately, beginning in early 2008, crackers started getting the better of the CAPTCHA systems. In short order, Yahoo Mail’s, Gmail’s and Hotmail’s CAPTCHA defenses were cracked.

Building a better spam-blocking CAPTCHA.

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Social networking risk: Managing the inevitable

rosepena — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:01:49 +0000

According to Dictionary.com, trust is partially defined as “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.” This definition is a good description of how many younger employees, those who grew up with Web-based social networks, see Facebook, Twitter, and other sites dedicated to meeting friends and sharing experiences across cultural and geographic boundaries. This new approach to socializing becomes a problem when these meetings and this sharing include participation by ‘friends’ with social engineering in mind. More on TechRepublic…Technorati Tags: social media, social, risk, security, twitter, teens, youth, adolescents, safety, internet

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