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It finally admitted to buying bulk data on Americans from data brokers, in response to a query by Senator Weyden. This is almost certainly illegal, although the NSA maintains that it is legal until it’s told otherwise. Some news articles. Powered by WPeMatico
When you get a push notification on your Apple or Google phone, those notifications go through Apple and Google servers. Which means that those companies can spy on them—either for their own reasons or in response to government demands. Sen. Wyden is trying to get to the bottom of this: In a statement, Apple said … Read More “Spying through Push Notifications” »
The Intercept has a long article on the insecurity of photo cropping: One of the hazards lies in the fact that, for some of the programs, downstream crop reversals are possible for viewers or readers of the document, not just the file’s creators or editors. Official instruction manuals, help pages, and promotional materials may mention … Read More “The Insecurity of Photo Cropping” »
Long and interesting interview with Signal’s new president, Meredith Whittaker: WhatsApp uses the Signal encryption protocol to provide encryption for its messages. That was absolutely a visionary choice that Brian and his team led back in the day - and big props to them for doing that. But you can’t just look at that and … Read More “Interview with Signal’s New President” »
A January 2021 FBI document outlines what types of data and metadata can be lawfully obtained by the FBI from messaging apps. Rolling Stone broke the story and it’s been written about elsewhere. I don’t see a lot of surprises in the document. Lots of apps leak all sorts of metadata: iMessage and WhatsApp seem … Read More “Law Enforcement Access to Chat Data and Metadata” »
Really interesting research: “Exploitation and Sanitization of Hidden Data in PDF Files” Abstract: Organizations publish and share more and more electronic documents like PDF files. Unfortunately, most organizations are unaware that these documents can compromise sensitive information like authors names, details on the information system and architecture. All these information can be exploited easily by … Read More “Metadata Left in Security Agency PDFs” »
A group of researchers set up a telephony honeypot and tracked robocall behavior: NCSU researchers said they ran 66,606 telephone lines between March 2019 and January 2020, during which time they said to have received 1,481,201 unsolicited calls — even if they never made their phone numbers public via any source. The research team said … Read More “Robocall Results from a Telephony Honeypot” »
Note that this is “announced,” so we don’t know when it’s actually going to be implemented. Facebook today announced new features for Messenger that will alert you when messages appear to come from financial scammers or potential child abusers, displaying warnings in the Messenger app that provide tips and suggest you block the offenders. The … Read More “Facebook Announces Messenger Security Features that Don’t Compromise Privacy” »
The New York Times is reporting on the NSA’s phone metadata program, which the NSA shut down last year: A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded only a single significant investigation, according to a newly declassified study. … Read More “Newly Declassified Study Demonstrates Uselessness of NSA’s Phone Metadata Program” »
Interesting analysis: “Examining the Anomalies, Explaining the Value: Should the USA FREEDOM Act’s Metadata Program be Extended?” by Susan Landau and Asaf Lubin. Abstract: The telephony metadata program which was authorized under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, remains one of the most controversial programs launched by the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) in the wake … Read More “Evaluating the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program” »