Obama Admin asks secret FISA court to re-start dragnet. Source article from The Guardian This post sponsored by RecipeSchmecipe.com The Backdrop By Susan Modaress @SusanModaress After weeks of political showdown, infighting and drama, the Senate finally passed the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reform provisions of one of the National Security Agency’s most controversial surveillance programs, The US Patriot Act, …
Government Data Breach
Millions of federal employees’ personal info stolen. Source article on CNN.com Create your own user feedback survey US officials say nearly every government agency was hacked. Personal information of 4 million federal employees was stolen. Investigators say the breach was traced to China. Officials claim China is building a database of Americans’ info. The breach didn’t affect uniformed military personnel. …
Blogger Hacked to Death
Anti-religion, Atheist blogger murdered in streets. Anata Bijoy Das was an Atheist/humanist writer in Bangladesh. He wrote for a blog critical of extremism and religion. On Tuesday, 4 masked men hacked him to death in the streets. He is the 3rd writer this year butchered in public. 9 bloggers have been murdered in Bangladesh in 2 years. No terrorist organization …
NSA Patriot Act Ruling
Appeals court says NSA’s meta data collection illegal. NSA collects MOST of our texts, calls, emails, & web traffic. All of that is completely legal, in part, thanks to the Patriot Act. Part of the data they collect is called “meta data.” Meta data is info about calls: the numbers and length of call. After Snowden revelations, the ACLU (and …
White House Hacked
Russian hackers access unclassified systems. Russian hackers first breached the US State Department in ‘14. The hackers have “owned” the State Dep’t network for months. The FBI is still struggling to eliminate them from the system. From the State Dep’t, hackers then accessed the White House. Investigators believe they used an email “phishing” scam. “Phishing” is when hackers pose as …
NSA Hacks SIM Cards
NSA/GCHQ stole millions of SIM cards’ encryption keys. The GCHQ is Britain’s NSA. Your phone’s SIM card contains a secret encryption key. Your carrier/provider also has that same encryption key. To connect, your SIM and provider check that they keys match. If they do, all communication between them is encrypted. Carriers like Verizon, AT&T do not make their own SIM …
Hackers Steal Medical Data
4.5 million SSNs, DOBs, and more stolen Community Health Systems has been hacked. Chinese hackers took data from 4.5 million patients. Data stolen: SSNs, DOBs, addresses, phone numbers. They did not taken medical history or credit card info. This impacts patients in the last 5 years and any referrals to CHS. CHS will notify patients affected by the breach. CHS also …