Decix, the largest internet traffic exchange point (IXP) worldwide, has had it with the snoops. The Frankfurt company on Thursday confirmed a report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that it will file a complaint at the German Federal Administrative Court against the obligation to grant broad access to the German Intelligence Service (BND) to the traffic transiting its large switches. more
"British security agencies have secretly and unlawfully collected massive volumes of confidential personal data, including financial information, on citizens for more than a decade, top judges have ruled," according to a report published today in The Guardian. more
A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden indicates that Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal, according to a report from CBC. After reviewing the document, one of Canada's foremost authorities on cyber-security says the clandestine operation by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) was almost certainly illegal... more
The internet activity of everyone in UK will have to be stored for one year by Internet service providers, under the new surveillance law plans. "This duty would include forcing firms to hold a schedule of which websites someone visits and the apps they connect to through computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices. Police and other agencies would be then able to access these records in pursuit of criminals -- but also seek to retrieve data in a wider range of inquiries, such as missing people." more
Democracy Now has a video discussion on the recent reports about telecoms in Europe aiding the Iranian government develop highly sophisticated Internet censorship mechanisms or deep packet inspection. The WSJ recently reported that the Iranian monitoring capabilities where "at least in part [provided] by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finish cellphone compnay, in second half of 2008." (also see previous report: Iran's Internet Censorship Most Sophisticated in the World) more
The White House will not publicly support a controversial bill that would give law enforcement guaranteed access to encrypted data, according to reports. more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a new site to keep track of 'Terms of Service' for major websites such as Google, Facebook, eBay and others. The new website called TOSBack has been created to help users easily find privacy policies of various websites and to alert them when those policies are changed. "Some changes to terms of service are good for consumers, and some are bad," says EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "But Internet users are increasingly trusting websites with everything from their photos to their 'friends lists' to their calendar -- and sometimes even their medical information. TOSBack will help consumers flag changes in the websites they use every day and trust with their personal information." more
Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg made comments at the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona today stating he is sympathetic to Apple's position in its clash with the FBI. more
FBI says it may have found a way to unlock Syed Rizwan's iPhone without Apple's help and while exploring this option, a federal judge has postponed tomorrow's hearing. more
A coalition, called StopWatching.Us, which includes over a hundred advocacy organizations and companies is working to organize "the biggest mass protest of the NSA's surveillance programs to date" in Washington, D.C. The coalition consists of organizations and companies such as ACLU, Access, Demand Progress, Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreedomWorks, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Mozilla, reddit, Restore the Fourth and Thoughtworks. more
There have been a number of occasions when the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has made a principled decision upholding users' expectations of privacy in their use of IETF-standardised technologies. (Either that, or they were applying their own somewhat liberal collective bias and to the technologies they were working on!) The first major such incident that I can recall is the IETF's response to the US CALEA measures. more
The European Union has struck a deal "in principle" with the United States on a new data-sharing agreement to allow digital information to flow between borders. more
The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The digital domain is not limited to the technologies itself, but it has an important ethical dimension that encompasses the values, principles and instruments that inform and govern it. Created by humans for humans, our beliefs, cultural backgrounds, and biases are reflected in the codes we write and the algorithms we create. more
Facebook lobbyists are working behind the scenes for a major cyber bill set for a final Senate vote Tuesday despite growing opposition to the bill among tech companies, according to a digital rights advocacy group fighting against the measure. more
Members of the European Parliament have taken stock of the lack of action taken to safeguard citizens' fundamental rights following revelations of electronic mass surveillance. more
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