Monthly Archives: September 2014

Episode 58 CO Tax Hike; NSA Code in Android clip4

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Episode 58 CO Tax Hike; NSA Code in Android clip4 - Video

By John Johnson

Newser

A customer holds his new iPhone 6 at an Apple Store in Augusta, Ga.(AP Photo/The Augusta Chronicle, Michael Holahan)

Apple says its latest iPhone has an encryption system that will keep users' emails and photos safe from the prying eyes of the NSA or any law-enforcement agency, reports the New York Times.

The company says its algorithm is so complex that if it ever had to turn over data from an iPhone 6, it would take the NSA about five years to decode it.

Even if Apple is underestimating the NSA's abilities, the principle isn't sitting well with FBI chief James Comey. What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law, he says.

Comey cited the example of a kidnapping in which parents come to him "with tears in their eyes" and say, "'What do you mean you can't?'" The Times report also quotes security officials who predict terrorists will quickly embrace such technology, along with a tech expert who says law-enforcement concerns are being exaggerated.

In an earlier piece on the encryption by Matthew Green at Slate, Green says Apple isn't picking a fight with the government. "Apple is not designing systems to prevent law enforcement from executing legitimate warrants," he writes.

"Its building systems that prevent everyone who might want your dataincluding hackers, malicious insiders, and even hostile foreign governmentsfrom accessing your phone." What's more, "Apple is setting a precedent that users, and not companies, should hold the keys to their own devices." Google has similar protection available for Android phones, though the encryption is not currently a default option.

That will change with new Androids out in October. (In other iPhone 6 news, Apple said last week it's received only nine complaints about phones bending.)

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NSA-proof iPhone 6?

National Security Agency is building its private cloud on commodity hardware, opens source software

The National Security Agency (NSA) had a problem familiar to any enterprise IT manager executive: it was running out of space for hundreds of disparate relational databases that contain everything from back-office information to intelligence on foreign interests. And it needed to consolidate those databases to make it easier for NSA analysts to do their job.

The NSA's initial approach was to scale up capacity. But halfway through the process, the staff realized that simply increasing the scope of the network was not going to work. So, CIO Lonny Anderson convinced General Keith Alexander, who was then Director of the NSA and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, to approve a move to the cloud.

Today, as the private cloud project continues to be rolled out, the agency is seeing the benefits. Tasks that took analysts days now take as little as minutes, costs have been reduced, and the management and protection of information has taken a huge step forward.

To learn about this effort, which dates back to 2009, Network World was invited to interview Anderson at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. He explained that the goal was to create an environment sufficiently large to handle the data repositories and to ensure that analysts would have the user-facing experience of one-stop-shopping that the cloud can provide.

He also pointed out that the NSA effort is part of a larger migration of U.S. intelligence agencies to the cloud. In 2011, sequestration forced the Department of Defense to absorb ``huge budget cuts,'' says Anderson.

The agencies ``decided to economize by sharing IT services and thereby avoid a drastic slash," says Anderson. The NSA, CIA, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) divvied up the responsibilities, with NSA and CIA handling the cloud infrastructure; NGA and DIA taking on the desktop; and NRO focusing on network requirements and engineering services.

In addition to saving on cost, putting all intelligence community data in the same bucket is enhancing the speed, depth and efficacy of their work.

Inside the cloud

Anderson describes the private cloud as "an integrated set of open source and government developed services on commercial hardware that meets the specific operational and security needs of NSA and Intelligence Community (IC) m IC DS1mission partners. NSA is part of an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) effort to migrate to a community cloud that brings together NSA's cloud services with commercial cloud services at the classified level."

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Exclusive: Inside the NSA's private cloud

WASHINGTON Documents released by the government show it views an executive order issued in 1981 as the basis of most of the National Security Agency's surveillance activities, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday.

The NSA relied on Executive Order 12333 more than it did on two other laws that have been the focus of public debate since former agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked files exposing surveillance programs, according to the papers released by the ACLU.

The ACLU obtained the documents only after filing a lawsuit last year seeking information in connection with the order, which it said the NSA was using to collect vast amounts of data worldwide, inevitably including communications of U.S. citizens.

The order, signed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, was intended to give the government broad authority over surveillance of international targets.

One of the documents obtained was a 2007 NSA manual citing the executive order as the primary source of NSA's foreign intelligence-gathering authority.

A legal fact sheet on the memo produced in June 2013, two weeks after Snowden's disclosures, said the NSA relied on the executive order for the majority of its activities involving intelligence gathered through signals interception.

Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a blog post published on Monday that the documents confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying.

Congress's reform efforts have not addressed the executive order, and the bulk of the government's disclosures in response to the Snowden revelations have conspicuously ignored the NSA's extensive mandate under EO 12333, Abdo wrote.

Neither the NSA nor Justice Department, which is defending the lawsuit, responded to requests for comment Monday.

The ACLU's lawsuit, filed in December 2013 in New York, cited news reports indicating that, under the order, the NSA is collecting data on cell phone locations and email contact lists, as well as information from Google and Yahoo user accounts.

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NSA relies on 1981 executive order signed by Reagan

Documents released by the US government show it views an executive order issued in 1981 as the basis of most of the National Security Agency's surveillance activities, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday.

The NSA relied on Executive Order 12333 more than it did on two other laws that have been the focus of public debate following the leaks exposing US surveillance programs by former agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to the papers released by the ACLU.

The ACLU obtained the documents after filing a lawsuit last year seeking information in connection with the order, which it said the NSA was using to collect vast amounts of data worldwide, "inevitably" including communications of US citizens.

The order, signed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, was intended to give the government broad authority over surveillance of international targets.

One of the documents obtained was a 2007 NSA manual citing the executive order as "the primary source of NSA's foreign intelligence-gathering authority."

A legal fact sheet on the memo produced in June 2013, two weeks after Snowden's disclosures, said the NSA relied on the executive order for the "majority" of its activities involving intelligence gathered through signals interception.

Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a blog post published on Monday that the documents "confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying."

"Congress's reform efforts have not addressed the executive order, and the bulk of the government's disclosures in response to the Snowden revelations have conspicuously ignored the NSA's extensive mandate under EO 12333," Abdo wrote.

Neither the NSA nor US Department of Justice, which is defending the lawsuit, responded to requests for comment Monday.

The ACLU's lawsuit, filed in December 2013 in New York, cited news reports indicating that, under the order, the NSA is collecting data on cell phone locations and email contact lists, as well as information fromGoogleandYahoouser accounts.

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Reagan signed off on NSA surveillance