Sprint fed customer GPS data to cops over 8 million times: ars technica

“A blogger has released audio of Sprint's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing the carrier's cooperation with law enforcement. Among the revelations are that Sprint has so far filled over 8 million requests from LEOs for customer GPS data.

“By Jon Stokes | Last updated December 1, 2009 5:38 PM

“Christopher Soghoian, a graduate student at Indiana University's School of Informatics and Computing, has made public an audio recording of Sprint/Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing how his company has provided GPS location data about its wireless customers to law enforcement over 8 million times.

“Through a mix of documents unearthed by Freedom of Information Act requests and the aforementioned recording, Soghoian describes how ‘the government routinely obtains customer records from ISPs detailing the telephone numbers dialed, text messages, emails and instant messages sent, web pages browsed, the queries submitted to search engines, and geolocation data, detailing exactly where an individual was located at a particular date and time.’”

Sprint: 50 million customers, 8 million law enforcement GPS requests in 1 year from Christopher Soghoian on Vimeo.

Lawsuit Demands Answers About Social-Networking Surveillance

Government Agencies Withholding Information on Data-Gathering from Facebook, Twitter, and Other Online Communities

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) …filed suit today against a half-dozen government agencies for refusing to disclose their policies for using social networking sites for investigations, data-collection, and surveillance.

Recent news reports have publicized the government's use of social networking data as evidence in various investigations, and Congress is currently considering several pieces of legislation that may increase protections for consumers…

"Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives," said James Tucker, a student working with EFF…"As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake."

Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers

Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”

“Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies,” the company writes….

I'm not all that shocked, and I'm certainly not confused.

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Dark Matter Lab Dedicated 5,000 Feet Underground

From: io9.com

By Stephen Goldmeier, 2:08 PM on Tue Jun 23 2009

“This week, the Sanford Lab dedicated an underground science fortress to research dark matter. The lab is 5,000 feet underground in the mountains of South Dakota, shielded from cosmic radiation.

“The lab is on a site that used to do physics research, and was a gold mine before that. The current Sanford Lab, in collaboration with the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL), is the deepest underground lab in the world. It's divided into three levels: the shallow lab, the mid-level, and the deep campus. The deep campus is 6 and a half Empire State Buildings deep, or around 8,000 feet.”

Scientists create first electronic quantum processor

Contact: Suzanne Taylor Muzzin
suzanne.taylormuzzin@yale.edu
Yale University

New Haven, Conn.—A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. Their findings will appear in Nature's advanced online publication June 28.

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io9 - Germans Deny Patent For GPS/Poison Microchip - Remote control murder

A Saudi inventor filed a patent for a "killer chip" which, once implanted, would monitor "undesirables" using a GPS. Oh, and it also comes with an extra feature: a remote-controlled cyanide dispenser, for murder.

US ramps up cybersecurity focus

The White House should take direct control of US cybersecurity, the woman tipped to be President Obama's net security Czar has said.

Melissa Hathaway told a conference in San Francisco that the net had not been built with safety in mind.

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Researchers recently concluded the average number of unique new infected sites grew from 100,000-200,000 a day to 200,000-300,000 a day and this trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. In addition, the world recently witnessed the third cyber attack against a country (Kyrgyzstan).

PIN Crackers Nab Holy Grail of Bank Card Security

Hackers have crossed into new frontiers by devising sophisticated ways to steal large amounts of personal identification numbers, or PINs, protecting credit and debit cards, says an investigator. The attacks involve both unencrypted PINs and encrypted PINs that attackers have found a way to crack,...

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Typing "Prompt Commands" Sufficient to Seize Your Property

You need to take the time to read the warrant available via PDF. Insanity. Someone's computer crashes and suspects it's a CS student's fault because he does things like "'jail breaks' cell phones" and he is sometimes seen with a "[computer with] a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on." Yikes.

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How to break DRM - easy step-by-step explanations - iTunes, DVDs, etc.

Former Area 51 scientists break their decades-long silence

UFO theorists and alien conspiracists brace yourselves!Former employees of the mysterious and infamous Area 51 are now breaking their decades-long silence and coming forward to talk about their work at the ultra-secret military facility.

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Neil Young Converts 1959 Lincoln Into 100 MPG Hybrid

It is not often that we get to combine our passion for music, good design, green technologies, and hot 1950’s classic vehicles. Neil Young recently released his latest album “Fork in the Road”, which is dedicated to the Lincvolt project that transformed his classic Lincoln Continental into a hot zero emissions vehicle that gets 100mpg.

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