The Switchboard: Google says NSA surveillance could break the Internet

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Published every weekday, the Switchboard is your morning helping of handpicked stories from the Switch team.

Teens are officially over Facebook. "Between fall 2014 and spring 2014, when Piper Jaffray last conducted this survey, Facebook use among teenagers aged 13 to 19 plummeted from 72 percent to 45 percent," according to The Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey.

Twitter's head of news quits after less than a year at the company. "[Vivian] Schiller joined Twitter as the social media platform started to move more aggressively into journalism at the end of last year," the Verge reports, "building new alerts for breaking news, and attempting to nurture relationships with the media industry."

iOS 8 adoption is slow because its a nerd release. "According to multiple sources, iOS 8 downloads have basically flatlined," according to Wired. "Mixpanel reports iOS 8 users currently make up 45 percent of total iOS users, while iOS 7 users still make up 50 percent."

U.S. spying scandal will 'break the Internet,' says Google's Schmidt. CNET reports: "The impact of U.S. government surveillance on tech firms and the economy is going to get worse before it gets better, leaders at some of the biggest tech firms warned U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on Wednesday during a roundtable on the impact of US government surveillance on the digital economy."

Russian cybercrime group compromised half a million computers. Computerworld reports: "A mistake by a suspected Russian-speaking cybercriminal group allowed a security vendor to peep on a campaign that stole login credentials for hundreds of thousands of online bank accounts."

Brian Fung covers technology for The Washington Post.

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The Switchboard: Google says NSA surveillance could break the Internet

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Chatting to Al Qaeda? Try not to do that Ex spy chief defends post-Snowden NSA

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You have nothing to fear from the NSA: that is unless you're from outside the United States, or you arouse the agency's suspicion by chatting to Al Qaeda. "Try not to do that," was the advice given.

The warnings come from former NSA chief General Keith Alexander, who told delegates at a security conference that the National Security Agency's activities, as described by ex-NSA sysadmin and secret-doc-leaker Edward Snowden, are just the agency doing its job.

In a speech delivered to the MIRCon 2014 conference in Washington, Alexander made no apology for the phone call metadata siphoned by the business record FISA programme run by the NSA, including data collected on Five Eyes and European allies. Such collection is part and parcel of spycraft, and in line with the agency's stated mission, he said.

"Our data's in there (NSA databases), my data's in there. If I talk to an Al Qaeda operative, the chances of my data being looked at is really good, so I try not to do that. If you don't want to you shouldn't either," he told MIRcon delegates.

"It doesn't mean that we didn't collect on key leaders around the world," he said, before referencing a hypothetical question he once asked of allied countries that indicated each spied on one another, regardless of diplomatic position.

"Nations act in nations' best interest ... we at times want to make sure a war doesn't break out [and] it is important that our political, military leaders know what is going on."

He added pointedly: "Somebody has to be in charge".

The NSA pulled about 180 numbers a year from FISA records, which Alexander said was critical to "connecting the dots" and was an act that had been "100 per cent" audited since the Snowden leaks, without fault.

To shore up his argument, he recapped the US's scuppering of a 2009 terrorist attack on the New York subway and the arrest of lead suspect Najibullah Zazi, who appeared through his phone records to have coordinated the bombing. The FBI swooped on Zazi as he transited the country based on FISA intel, Alexander said.

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Chatting to Al Qaeda? Try not to do that Ex spy chief defends post-Snowden NSA

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Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Records Violates the Fourth Amendment – Video

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Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Records Violates the Fourth Amendment
Presented in partnership with the National Constitution Center Some say that mass collection of U.S. phone records is a gross invasion of privacy. Others say that it is necessary to keep us...

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Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Records Violates the Fourth Amendment - Video

Feds Say That Even If FBI Hacked The Silk Road, Ulbricht's Rights Weren't Violated

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While alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbrichts trial wont start for another month, the legal battle is already heating up in court filings, centered around two questions: How did the Feds locate the Silk Road servers, and were Ulbrichts Fourth Amendment rights violated in the process? In its latest response, the government says it doesnt matter if the FBI hacked the Silk Road servers last OctoberUlbrichts rights still wouldnt have been violated.

Back in October 2013 when the Silk Road servers were seized by the feds in Iceland, no one knew exactly how the government had located the websites servers. Soon after, the feds arrested Ulbricht in San Francisco, claiming he was the Dread Pirate Roberts and the mastermind behind the online drug bazaar. Since then, Ulbricht has been charged with seven drug trafficking, narcotics, and ID theft charges.

But the details about how the government found the servers remained a mystery until last month. At the beginning of August, Ulbrichts defense filed a motion claiming that Ulbrichts Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the government, and that by the fruit of a poisonous tree, all evidence stemming from the seizure of the Silk Road servers should be suppressed.

In order to respond to the motion, the government was forced to reveal for the first time how it discovered the Silk Road. According to a response filed last month with a declaration by FBI agent Chris Tarbell, the Silk Road servers were discovered by the FBI because of leaky code coming from the Silk Road website. When the leaking IP addresses were plugged into a non-Tor browser, part of the Silk Roads login page appeared. The feds then contacted Icelandic authorities, asking for imaging of the servers. The entire process was legal and not in violation of Ulbrichts rights, according to the FBI.

The defense was not convinced by the FBIs facile explanation and filed a response last week with a declaration by defense lawyer Joshua Horowitz, who specializes in technology and computer software. His analysis of six terabytes of discovery data presented to the defense poked holes in Tarbells account and likened the FBIs actions to hacking.

In his declaration, Horowitz claimed that the FBIs description of how the Silk Road servers were discovered was implausible. He notes that the governments account of how the servers were discovered varies from the description the FBI gave to Icelandic authorities, and that many modifications were made to the Silk Road servers before the FBI claims to have reached out to the Icelandic authorities. Horowitz argues that Tarbell failed to follow even the most rudimentary standards of computer forensic analysis. Highlighting a number of inconsistencies he found, Horowitz asked for more information from the government.

In a response filed on Monday, the government steered away from addressing any of Horowitz claims or questions. Instead, the prosecution argued thattrue or notHorowitzs claims are irrelevant because they dont prove that Ulbrichts rights were violated.

The Horowitz Declaration nowhere alleges that the SR Server was either located or searched in a manner that violated the Fourth Amendment. It merely critiques certain aspects of the Tarbell Declaration concerning how the SR Server was location, the governments response reads.

In any event, even if the FBI had somehow hacked into the SR Server in order to identify its IP address, such an investigative measure would not have run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, the response continues.

The government also questioned why Ulbricht did not submit a personal affidavit explaining how his privacy was violated. In response, the judge gave the defense until Tuesday night to submit a personal affidavit from Ulbricht. The defense has asked for an extension until October 9, because of the short notice and because Ulbrichts lawyer Joshua Dratel is in the midst of another trial.

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Feds Say That Even If FBI Hacked The Silk Road, Ulbricht's Rights Weren't Violated

Argument analysis: A simple answer to a deceptively simple Fourth Amendment question?

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The first argument of the Term yesterday appears to have been somewhat unsatisfying for the Justices. As previewed here, the question on which the Court granted review in Heien v. North Carolina was a simple one: May a police officers reasonable mistake of law provide the reasonable suspicion required for a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment? The Justices questions appeared to indicate an almost unanimous affirmative answer, although the Chief Justice did note that an answer with too broad a scope might have troubling implications. The Justices expressed some confusion about the proper disposition of the case, however, with Justice Scalia going so far at one point as to almost suggest a DIG (dismiss as improvidently granted). Still, Ill predict a short unanimous opinion answering the Question Presented with yes, leaving to footnotes and concurrences the larger and more difficult intricacies of the case.

A simple question presented, albeit with troubling implications

You will recall that a deputy sheriff stopped Heiens car because one of his brake lights was not working. (Because the officer was actually interested in criminal interdiction, Justice Sotomayor described the encounter as a lawful pretext, and the officer did indeed find drugs in a subsequent consent search. Although Justice Ginsburg twice inquired why the lawful consent didnt eliminate the issue of the stop, the traditional rule has been that the fruits of an invalid stop must be suppressed.)

On appeal, however, a state appellate court ruled that there was in fact no traffic violation as a matter of law (and hence no reasonable suspicion of one), because the North Carolina statute requires only a [singular] stop lamp. Thus, that court ruled, the Fourth Amendment had been violated, and Heiens conviction should be vacated. But on further appeal, while accepting the appellate courts surprising legal interpretation of the law, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that Heiens conviction might stand, because the officers mistake of law had been a reasonable one the state statute was antiquated and the one-brake-light legal ruling was surprising to most. Thus, the court ruled, there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and Heiens case was remanded for further proceedings.

On Heiens further interlocutory certiorari petition, the question thus appeared to be simply presented: can such a reasonable legal error create reasonable suspicion, or should officers be held to know the law just as private citizens would be? That is, if two working brake lights were in fact required, it would be no defense for Heien to argue that he reasonably did not know that. Ignorance of the law is no excuse is the common law maxim, and Heien argued that this should apply equally to officers stopping cars. A contrary ruling would, as Heiens experienced Supreme Court advocate Jeff Fisher argued, vastly expand police officer discretion, allowing them to stop cars and people whenever a reasonable ambiguity of legal authority could be argued. This is the broad implication about which Chief Justice Roberts and some other Justices expressed concern yesterday.

Of course, the Court could simply rule that a reasonable mistake of law satisfies the Fourth Amendment, and then just narrowly define what will count as reasonable. Justice Kennedy repeatedly turned to this question what is standard to determine a reasonable legal mistake? and Justice Breyer and others also seemed to focus on it. It was interesting to this reader that no one suggested that when there is legal ambiguity, a reasonable officer might be required to conduct a reasonable investigation to obtain a clear legal ruling about the scope of the law, before relying on it to stop and search. Fisher did suggest, however, that the Court ought to require a definitive ruling from a court or legislature before allowing officers to act. Meanwhile, North Carolina Deputy Attorney General Robert Montgomery suggested a generous standard (although no Justice appeared to endorse it): the officer simply gets to decide which he thought was the better rule. But as Fisher responded, allowing officers to exploit statutory ambiguities in order to conduct intrusive stops and searches would undercut public confidence in law enforcement.

The twist in the case

Aside from defining what is reasonable, one might think, simple question, simple answer, right? Not so fast. About thirty seconds into yesterdays argument, Justice Kennedy asked the first question, raising a point which then preoccupied the Court for much of the hour. Suppose North Carolina did have a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. What would you be arguing today? It turns out that, at the time of Heiens arrest, the North Carolina Supreme Court had ruled that as a matter of state constitutional law, suppression of evidence is required when the Fourth Amendment is violated regardless of officers good faith. (North Carolinas legislature has since amended the law.) That ruling is of course opposite to the U.S. Supreme Courts 1984 ruling in United States v. Leon that there is a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. It was briefly asked yesterday, but not seriously examined, whether a state may declare its own state-law remedy for federal constitutional violations. Federalism should respect that choice, argued Fisher.

Thus Fisher plainly wants to argue on remand that Heiens conviction should remain vacated because reasonable good faith does not apply. However, Fishers immediate response to Justice Kennedy was that the Court [does]nt have to reach that question, since North Carolina has not argued it. When Deputy Attorney General Robert Montgomery stood up to argue in response, he confirmed that point; the state has not argued for a good faith exception to be applied in Heiens case. This position seemed to clearly confuse at least some of the Justices (as it continues to confuse me). The North Carolina Supreme Courts ruling suggests that Heiens narcotics conviction should be reinstated on remand. Heien plainly wants that ruling vacated. But as repeatedly stressed by Justice Scalia, the Court doesnt review opinions, [it] reviews judgments. So unless the remedy is exclusion, Justice Scalia asserted, theres no basis for us to set aside the judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Or, in other words, if the federal rule is that there should not be suppression in any case due to good faith, why should the Court answer a preliminary question (whether there was a Fourth Amendment violation) that doesnt matter? As Justice Kennedy asked with some frustration, Can North Carolina more or less set us up this way?

Fisher responded that in fact it is not uncommon for the Court to announce a federal constitutional rule, and then remand to the state courts for further proceedings not inconsistent with its ruling. Indeed, that is what the North Carolina Supreme Court did, once it ruled that a reasonable mistake of law did not constitute a Fourth Amendment violation: just remand for further proceedings. Justice Scalia ultimately expressed reluctant acceptance on this point: If it hasnt been argued, I guess we can do that. I guess. . . . Im sorry to waste so much of our time.

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Argument analysis: A simple answer to a deceptively simple Fourth Amendment question?

Amendments deal with tax breaks for disabled homeowners

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Published: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 at 5:30 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 at 5:30 p.m.

Two proposed constitutional amendments on the Nov. 4 ballot would clarify how local governments grant property tax relief to disabled homeowners in Louisiana.

Proposed Amendment No. 7 Do you support an amendment to provide that the homesteads of veterans with a service-connected disability rating of one hundred percent unemployability or totally disabled by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, and their surviving spouses, shall be exempt from ad valorem taxation for up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars, and that a parishwide vote shall not be required to implement this change in qualification for the exemption?

Proposed Amendment No. 9 Do you support an amendment to exclude owners who are permanently totally disabled from the requirement that they annually certify to the assessor the amount of their adjusted gross income in order to receive the Special Assessment Level on their residences for property tax purposes?

A previous constitutional amendment granted disabled veterans an exemption on taxes on property valued up to $150,000. The language of that constitutional provision has created some confusion among local tax assessors, said state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, the author of the proposed amendment.

Constitutional Amendment 7 clarifies that a disabled veteran can receive the property tax exemption if he is deemed totally disabled by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or if he is 100 percent unemployable under Louisiana law due to military service. A surviving spouse can also receive the tax break.

Adley said some assessors were not sure whether the exemption applied to veterans who were deemed unemployable but not totally disabled. The uncertainty among tax assessors was likely cleared up during committee testimony in the recent legislative session, Adley said, but the constitutional amendment will remove any ambiguity about the intent of the Legislature.

This is simply to clear up any confusion, Adley said.

A second amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot, Constitutional Amendment 9, also deals with property taxes for disabled homeowners.

Louisiana law offers a special property tax break for permanently disabled homeowners whose income is below a certain level $67,670 in 2013 and adjusted for inflation annually. The law freezes the property value on the qualifying homes to prevent spikes in tax bills.

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Amendments deal with tax breaks for disabled homeowners

Reddit Raises $50 Million For Cryptocurrency Shares & Users Will Get 10% – Video

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Reddit Raises $50 Million For Cryptocurrency Shares Users Will Get 10%
Visit us at http://coinbrief.net/ and follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoinBrief Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coinbrief Sean Wince: https://twitter.com/CryptoSean...

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Reddit Raises $50 Million For Cryptocurrency Shares & Users Will Get 10% - Video

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Bounces Back and FBI's Silk Road Hacking was 'Reasonable'

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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency markets see prices increase following days of decline.(IBTimes UK)

The price of bitcoin has received a much needed boost, bouncing back up above $350 following an 8% rise in value since yesterday.

The price increase has had a positive knock-on effect across all other major markets, with none of the top twenty most valuable cryptocurrencies seeing any negative movement in the last 24 hours.

The biggest gains amongst the big players come from darkcoin and namecoin, which both saw a 10% increase that took their market capitalisations above $10 million once again.

Bitcoin Foundation comments on BitLicense proposal

The Bitcoin Foundation has highlighted the need for public access to the "extensive research and analysis" cited by the New York Department of Financial Services's (NYDFS) in its BitLicense proposal.

Jim Harper, global policy counsel for the Bitcoin Foundation, said that the proposed BitLicense regulation should not "sacrifice bitcoin's benefits" if the outcome is unknown or merely speculative.

"A regulatory regime that is markedly out of step with others is very likely to create inefficiency in national and global markets, which would suppress competition, hamper the delivery of benefits to consumers and frustrate consumers," Harper said.

FBI's warrantless hacking of Silk Road was 'reasonable'

Prosecutors in the case of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of the black market site Silk Road, have claimed that hacking the site without a warrant would have been lawful.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Bounces Back and FBI's Silk Road Hacking was 'Reasonable'

Cryptocurrency Exchange Cryptsy Integrates With eSpend Ripple Gateway Technology

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Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) October 09, 2014

eSpend (http://www.espend.com), a California financial technology company, has integrated Cryptsy, a Florida crypto-currency exchange, with the Ripple network. eSpends Ripple gateway software lets Cryptsy provide its customers with the ability to trade XRP, the Ripple networks native currency, against Cryptys current 130-plus currencies including USD. In the near future, Cryptsy intends to become a full-fledged Ripple gateway that allows all currencies to be transferred and traded on the Ripple network.

We have been wanting to get XRP on Cryptsy for a long time now, said Paul Vernon, CEO and founder of the Cryptsy exchange. The team at eSpend has made it easy and we look forward to working with them to bring in more of Ripples features.

Ripple is an open-source payments protocol developed by Ripple Labs. The Ripple protocol features a peer-to-peer, multi-currency exchange on a distributed, open order book, and cross-currency payments that settle in approximately 5 seconds thanks to Ripple's unique pathfinding and consensus algorithms. The protocol uses XRP to prevent abuse of the network, which market makers can use as a bridge currency between exotic foreign exchange pairs to increase capital efficiency. By integrating XRP with its exchange, Cryptsy now offers customers the fastest way to move liquid capital between exchanges for arbitrage purposes.

"We're excited to see eSpend and Cryptsy expand the Ripple ecosystem," said Chris Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Ripple Labs. "Cryptsy's gateway integration will make more than 90 new alternative currencies more liquid - tradable on Ripple's worldwide asset exchange, and spendable through debit card offerings built on Ripple.

Cryptsy is the first eSpend client to integrate with eSpend's Ripple gateway technology, which has been in development since early 2014. After a successful trial period with eSpend's XRP bridge technology, Cryptsy will enter stage two of the gateway integration. Cryptsy customers will then be able to withdraw their Cryptsy balances to their own Ripple wallet and trade those balances against any other asset being traded on Ripple's open order book, including USD, EUR, CNY, JPY, XAU, XAG, BTC and more. In order to encourage user participation, Cryptsy will be offering 0% trade fees on XRP markets until October 15th.

eSpend's Ripple gateway technology has been developed with institutional fund custodians and market makers in mind, including banks, credit unions, asset exchanges, brokerages, and foreign exchange firms. This new technology is designed to be fully compliant with KYC and AML regulations while enabling real-time settlement of cross-border and interbank payments with no foreign exchange risk and no need for correspondent banking relationships. Cryptsy is the first of several companies that are in the process of integrating with eSpend technology, with more exchange and bank partners soon to be announced.

For more information about eSpend, please contact info(at)espend(dot)com; For media inquiries: espend(at)transform(dot)pr

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

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Cryptocurrency Exchange Cryptsy Integrates With eSpend Ripple Gateway Technology

Bitcoin: Why Richard Branson, Bill Gates Support the Currency – Video

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Bitcoin: Why Richard Branson, Bill Gates Support the Currency
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Blockchain President Peter Smith discusses the company #39;s business model and the security concerns surrounding Bitcoin with Trish Regan on "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg).

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Bitcoin: Why Richard Branson, Bill Gates Support the Currency - Video

@refreshmiami why Bitcoin may sound awkward/unbelievable compared to existing payment "solutions" – Video

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@refreshmiami why Bitcoin may sound awkward/unbelievable compared to existing payment "solutions"
why Bitcoin may sound awkward or unbelievable when compared to existing mobile payment technologies. When compared to Apple Pay, Credit Cards, NFC, Bank clearing houses, and talked about ...

By: Angel Leon

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@refreshmiami why Bitcoin may sound awkward/unbelievable compared to existing payment "solutions" - Video