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Submission + - GCHQ guilty of industrial scale subversion .. (theguardian.com)

Submitted by codeusirae
codeusirae writes: A British engineer who works on anti-hacking systems at Google has furiously accused the UK and US spying agencies of "industrial scale subversion of the judicial process" by tapping the company's internal networks .. a senior engineer at Google since 2010, complains that "nobody at GCHQ or the NSA will ever stand before a judge and answer for this industrial-scale subversion of the judicial process" ...

Submission + - Google sparks online outrage with forced Google+ signups for YouTube users 3

Submitted by NewtonsLaw
NewtonsLaw writes: Although Google has copped flak before when they've messed around with the winning formula that is YouTube, the world's most successful and popular video sharing site, I suspect that they weren't ready for the tsunami of anger that has been unleashed against them as a result of their latest changes.

All non-passive YouTube users (ie: anyone who wants to leave or reply to comments on videos) must now create a Google+ identity and link it to their YouTube channel.

Cynics (such as myself) are seeing this as a nasty piece of *evil* blackmail on the part of Google as it attempts to boost the numbers of G+ users and the levels of activity within the G+ community.

Unfortunately, in doing this, Google seems to have completely forgotten the KISS strategy that made their search engine so distinctive and a darling of Net users everywhere. The YouTube comments system was also very simple, very clean and surprisingly effective.

Now however, users must fight their way through the acres of dross that are associated with a Google+ account and although the new system offers a few extra features, much of the essential core functionality of the previous YouTube comments system has been destroyed.

There are presently several online petitions demanding that Google reinstate the old comments system and numerous "rant videos" from upset YouTube users but perhaps the best demonstration of how poorly this forced change has gone down is the like/dislike ratio and the nature of the comments on Google's own YouTube promotional video for these changes.

Owch!

Submission + - Feedly Forces its Users to Create Google+ Profiles

Submitted by somegeekynick
somegeekynick writes: Feedly users, a lot of whom migrated from the now-defunct Google Reader, are now finding out that they will not be able to login to the service without a Google+ Profile. In a blog post from Edwin Khodabakchian, which was posted almost at the same time the change rolled out, the reason for the change is stated as following Google's own move from using OAuth to Google+ for authentication. What has riled up a lot of users, as can be read in the comments, is that this change has come without warning and a lot of feeds are now being "held hostage" by Feedly, especially for users who are reluctant to create Google+ Profiles.

Submission + - Microsoft Admits Windows 8.1 Update May Bork Your Mouse, Promises a Fix (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Microsoft has several valid reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 8.1, which is free if you already own Windows 8. However, there's a known issue that might give some gamers pause before clicking through in the Windows Store. There have been complaints of mouse problems after applying the Windows 8.1 update, most of which have been related to lag in video games, though Microsoft confirmed there are other potential quirks. Acknowledging the problem, Microsoft says it's also actively investigating the issues and working on a patch.

Submission + - Project seeks to build inexpensive 9-inch monitor for Raspberry Pi (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A Kickstarter project is aiming to bring an inexpensive 9-inch portable monitor to the popular US$25 Raspberry Pi PC, which comes without a keyboard, mouse or monitor. The "HDMIPi" will include an LCD panel that will show images at a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Computers can be hooked up to the monitor via an HDMI controller board that can be wired to the LCD. The display is being made by Raspi.TV and Cyntech.

Comment Re:-Wall (Score 1) 470

by msclrhd (#45275939) Attached to: How Your Compiler Can Compromise Application Security

If tun==NULL, then tun->sk will cause the executing code to crash (unless it is suppressed with a custom SIGSEGV handler). The compiler removing the if in this case will not change that behaviour. I don't see what case the paper is indicating this optimization would be a problem.

Granted, the if is in the wrong place and this is clearly a bug. But removing the if will not introduce any security bugs that are not already present in the code (unlike the optimizations that remove overflow checks).

How easy it is for the compiler to report the bug in the user's code (null check after use) is another question. It may be that this is deep in the gcc optimisation pass and it does not have enough information to generate a warning/error for this. Static analysers like sparse and llvm in static-analysis mode should be able to detect this, though.

Submission + - NSA intercepted 60.5 million phone calls in Spain within one month

Submitted by rtoz
rtoz writes: Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that it had seen an NSA document that showed the US spy agency had intercepted 60.5 ;million phone calls in Spain between 10 December 2012 and 8 January this year. According to El Mundo, the content of the calls was not monitored but the serial and phone numbers of the handsets used, the locations, sim cards and the duration of the calls were. Emails and other social media were also monitored. The Spanish prime minister has summoned the US ambassador to discuss NSA spying allegations. Last week Monday, France called in the U.S. ambassador to protest at allegations in Le Monde newspaper about large-scale spying on French citizens by NSA.

Submission + - Federal Prosecutors, in a Policy Shift, Cite Warrantless Wiretaps as Evidence (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Justice Department for the first time has notified a criminal defendant that evidence being used against him came from a warrantless wiretap, a move that is expected to set up a Supreme Court test of whether such eavesdropping is constitutional.

The government’s notice allows the defendant's lawyer to ask a court to suppress the evidence by arguing that it derived from unconstitutional surveillance, setting in motion judicial review of the eavesdropping.

Submission + - Skype Terminating Desktop API (i-programmer.info) 1

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Developers are waking up to the fact that the Sykpe Desktop API is to be withdrawn at the end of December 2013 — and are trying to reverse the decision with a petition.
Although the decision to "de-commission" the Desktop API was communicated to Sky partners in July, it didn't get much attention at the time. Now notices announcing that apps and devices will stop working in December have started to appear when users download the latest version of Skype and try to start a third party app.
So what are developers expected to use to create future apps — for mobile, web and desktop apps?
Currently the replacement URI API hardly justifies the name. It is a Rest-style API that provides very few facilities — place a call or start a chat and that's about it. This limits what you can now do and the idea that you can bring existing applications up-to-date is laughable.
Developers whose apps are affected are blaming Microsoft, which acquired Skype in 2011, and certainly it can be seen as part of Microsoft overall policy of deprecating the desktop while promoting mobile devices. By killing the API Skype is killing existing apps and existing add-on hardware.
If you want to make your voice heard sign the petition:http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/skype-microsoft-provide-continued-support-for-third-party-skype-utilities-that-have-become-mission-critical-to-skype-s-users

Submission + - Mac OS 10.9 -- Infinity times your spam (fastmail.fm)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Email service FastMail.fm has an blog post about an interesting bug they're dealing with related to the new Mail.app in Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks. After finding a user who had 71 messages in his Junk Mail folder that were somehow responsible for over a million entries in the index file, they decided to investigate. 'This morning I checked again, there were nearly a million messages again, so I enabled telemetry on the account ... [Mail.app] copying all the email from the Junk Folder back into the Junk Folder again!. This is legal IMAP, so our server proceeds to create a new copy of each message in the folder. It then expunges the old copies of the messages, but it’s happening so often that the current UID on that folder is up to over 3 million. It was just over 2 million a few days ago when I first emailed the user to alert them to the situation, so it’s grown by another million since. The only way I can think this escaped QA was that they used a server which (like gmail) automatically suppresses duplicates for all their testing, because this is a massively bad problem.' The actual emails added up to about 2MB of actual disk usage, but the bug generated an additional 2GB of data on top of that.

Submission + - File-Sharing Site Was Actually an Anti-Piracy Honeypot (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The administrator of file-sharing site UploaderTalk shocked and enraged his userbase a few days ago when he revealed that the site was nothing more than a honeypot set up by a company called Nuke Piracy. The main purpose of the site had been to gather data on its users. The administrator said, 'I collected info on file hosts, web hosts, websites. I suckered shitloads of you. I built a history, got the trust of some very important people in the warez scene collecting information and data all the time.' Nobody knows what Nuke Piracy is going to do with the data, but it seems reasonable to expect lawsuits and the further investigation of any services the users discussed. His very public betrayal is likely meant to sow discord and distrust among the groups responsible for distributing pirated files.

Submission + - ACLU: Lavabit Was 'Fatally Endermined' By Demands for Encryption Keys (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When encrypted email provider Lavabit shut down in August, it was because U.S. authorities demanded the company release encryption keys to get access to certain accounts. Lavabit's founder, Ladar Levison, is facing contempt of court charges for his refusal to acquiesce to their demands. But now the ACLU has filed a 'friend of the court' brief (PDF) in support of Levison, saying that the government's demand 'fatally undermined' the secure email service. 'Lavabit's business was predicated on offering a secure email service, and no company could possible tell its clients that it offers a secure service if its keys have been handed over to the government.' The ACLU added, 'The district court's contempt holding should be reversed, because the underlying orders requiring Lavabit to disclose its private keys imposed an unreasonable burden on the company. Although innocent third parties have a duty to assist law enforcement agents in their investigations, they also have a right not to be compelled "to render assistance without limitation regardless of the burden involved."' Lavabit is also defending itself by claiming a violation of the 4th amendment has occurred.

Submission + - www.NSA.gov is down (nsa.gov)

Submitted by jsrober
jsrober writes: The National Security Agency web site at www.nsa.gov is down.

Submission + - Too bad they canned all those SysAdmins: The NSA's web site is down. (rt.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: The website for the United States National Security Agency suddenly went offline Friday.

NSA.gov has been unavailable globally as of late Friday afternoon, and Twitter accounts belonging to people loosely affiliated with the Anonymous hacktivism movement have suggested they are responsible. Twitter users @AnonymousOwn3r and @TruthIzSexy both were quick to comment on the matter, and implied that a distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS, may have been waged as an act of protest against the NSA

Submission + - Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid (dailycaller.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using a warrant to search for guns, Homeland security officers and Maryland police confiscated a journalist’s confidential files.

The reporter had written a series of articles critical of the TSA. It appears that the raid was specifically designed to get her files, which contain identifying information about her sources in the TSA.

        “In particular, the files included notes that were used to expose how the Federal Air Marshal Service had lied to Congress about the number of airline flights there were actually protecting against another terrorist attack,” Hudson [the reporter] wrote in a summary about the raid provided to The Daily Caller.

        Recalling the experience during an interview this week, Hudson said: “When they called and told me about it, I just about had a heart attack.” She said she asked Bosch [the investigator heading the raid] why they took the files. He responded that they needed to run them by TSA to make sure it was “legitimate” for her to have them. “‘Legitimate’ for me to have my own notes?” she said incredulously on Wednesday.

        Asked how many sources she thinks may have been exposed, Hudson said: “A lot. More than one. There were a lot of names in those files. This guy basically came in here and took my anonymous sources and turned them over — took my whistleblowers — and turned it over to the agency they were blowing the whistle on,” Hudson said. “And these guys still work there.”

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