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FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades - 25 avril 2015
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s (...)
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As encryption spreads, U.S. grapples with clash between privacy, security - 14 avril 2015
For months, federal law enforcement agencies and industry have been deadlocked on a highly contentious issue : Should tech companies be obliged to guarantee government access to encrypted data on smartphones and other digital devices, and is that even possible without compromising the security of law-abiding (...)
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What happens when your friend’s smartphone can tell that you’re lying - 16 novembre 2014
In just a few weeks, the next installment of "The Hunger Games" will arrive in movie theaters. The latest in a long line of films to depict a future all-knowing or controlling government "” think "1984" or "Minority Report" "” the dystopian tale will likely be a runaway hit. But the power to seem all-knowing "“ (...)
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Federal sites leaked the locations of people seeking AIDS services for years - 10 novembre 2014
Two federal government Web sites that help people find AIDS-related medical services have begun routinely encrypting user data after years in which they let sensitive information — including the real-world locations of site visitors "“ onto the Internet unprotected.
Until the change, these sites had risked exposing (...)
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Newest Androids will join iPhones in offering default encryption, blocking police - 27 septembre 2014
The next generation of Google’s Android operating system, due for release next month, will encrypt data by default for the first time, the company said Thursday, raising yet another barrier to police gaining access to the troves of personal data typically kept on smartphones.
Android has offered optional (...)
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For sale : Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe - 26 août 2014
Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.
The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks : They must keep detailed, (...)
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What Facebook doesn’t show you - 19 août 2014
When you spend a day with something that knows you in ways you don’t know yourself, you learn that maybe you aren’t quite as interested in the things you think you are.
Here’s what I learned about myself : It seems I don’t much care about my hometown or the people in it, I’m far more interested in feminist blogs than (...)
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List of foreign governments and organizations authorized for surveillance - 2 juillet 2014
This exhibit lists the 193 foreign governments as well as foreign factions, political organizations and other entities that were part of a 2010 certification approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These are the entities about which the NSA may conduct surveillance, for the purpose of gathering (...)
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Court gave NSA broad leeway in surveillance, documents show - 2 juillet 2014
Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information "concerning" all but four countries, according to top-secret documents.
The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries "” Britain, Canada, (...)
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The FBI maintains an 83-page glossary of Internet slang. And it is hilariously, frighteningly out of touch. - 19 juin 2014
The Internet is full of strange and bewildering neologisms, which anyone but a text-addled teen would struggle to understand. So the fine, taxpayer-funded people of the FBI "” apparently not content to trawl Urban Dictionary, like the rest of us "” compiled a glossary of Internet slang.
The glossary was recently (...)
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Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence - 12 avril 2014
In May 2012, the law school at George Mason University hosted a forum billed as a “vibrant discussion” about Internet search competition. Many of the major players in the field were there — regulators from the Federal Trade Commission, federal and state prosecutors, top congressional staffers.
What the guests had (...)
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With Fire TV, Amazon joins growing battle among tech giants to reinvent television - 3 avril 2014
Amazon.com stepped into the fight to control America’s televisions Wednesday, unveiling a $99 set-top box known as Fire TV.
The small black device will allow viewers to watch movies and other video content on their televisions, bridging a gap between shopping and entertainment that the firm has long strived to (...)
plainte
Facebook says states shouldn’t regulate online teen privacy. The FTC disagrees. - 22 mars 2014
The Federal Trade Commission says that Facebook is misinterpreting a key children’s privacy law, in a move that could weaken the social network’s argument in a California district court suit over teen privacy on the Web site.
The FTC filed the brief Thursday night, weighing in on a key point for the case, Batman v. (...)
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NSA surveillance program reaches "˜into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls - 19 mars 2014
The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording "100 percent" of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by (...)
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Italian spyware firm relies on U.S. Internet servers - 4 mars 2014
An Italian computer spyware firm, whose tools foreign governments allegedly have used to snoop on dissidents and journalists, relies heavily on the servers of U.S. Internet companies, according to a new report.
At least 20 percent of the servers used by clients of Hacking Team, based in Milan, are located in the (...)
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Parents resume privacy fight vs. Facebook over use of children’s images in ads - 13 février 2014
A group of parents, backed by child advocacy and privacy groups, plans to ask a federal appeals court Thursday to throw out a settlement with Facebook over its use of children’s images in advertisements.
Two years ago, the social-media giant agreed to tweak its policies and pay up to $20 million in fines and (...)
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New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours at a time - 6 février 2014
Shooter and victim were just a pair of pixels, dark specks on a gray streetscape. Hair color, bullet wounds, even the weapon were not visible in the series of pictures taken from an airplane flying two miles above.
But what the images revealed "” to a degree impossible just a few years ago "” was location, mapped (...)
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Easton-Bell Sports reports data breach at its online vendor - 23 janvier 2014
Yet another retailer has disclosed a data breach "” this time affecting only online customers. Easton-Bell Sports, which owns several sports brands, said Tuesday that it was also the victim of a data intrusion that swept up the personal and financial information of an undisclosed number of customers.
In a (...)
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NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption - 3 janvier 2014
In room-size metal boxes Âsecure against electromagnetic leaks, the National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world.
According to documents provided by former NSA contractor (...)
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Facebook wants to know if you trust it. But it’s keeping all the answers to itself. - 1er janvier 2014
I recently got a prompt from Facebook to take a short survey on my user experience. You might’ve gotten one, too. It’s pretty quick and painless "” the company gives you a multiple-choice form and starts by asking how happy you are with Facebook, whether the service is easy to use, and if it’s reliable or not.
But (...)
