First, from Britain’s Channel 4, a denial from Glenn Greenwald of th claim British police are using to open a criminal investigation of his partner, held last week for hours at an airport before his scheduled flight to home in Brazil:
NSA files ‘were not a threat to national security’
The program notes
Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald tells Channel 4 News that it is “completely idiotic” to say UK national security was threatened by classified documents carried by his parner David Miranda.
Next from Russia Today, a report on German fears of Windows peeping, including interesting comments from Andy Mueller-Maghun, editor of Buggedplanet.info, a remarkable database of spooky programs and the corporations behind them:
Windows Watching? Germany fears OS provides NSA with remote access
The program notes:
Leaked German security documents have shown the country doesn’t trust the new Windows 8 system — fearing it provides the NSA with remote access. That’s according to one of the country’s newspapers — although the German government denies it. Earlier reports indicated the country was a major target for US intelligence — let’s remind you how much data the NSA collected there.
From an accompanying online story:
Documents uncovered and leaked by German news outlet Zeit Online found that the German Ministry of Economic Affairs was displaying significant unease with the combined technologies, suggesting the possibility that a backdoor could be created for further covert NSA surveillance operations.
The backdoor in question would allow Microsoft to control the computer remotely. “Trusted Computing,” a method developed and promoted by the Trusted Computing Group, is nothing new – fears were being aired over its capabilities and potential as early its founding in 1999.
TPM appeared in 2006 as security technology. However, version 2.0 would implant a chip on every single PC, allowing it to control which programs could and couldn’t be executed because under Windows 8, there is no override. The users thus basically surrender control over their computers.
Read the rest.
Finally, from RT Ameria, a claim by the FBI to have destroyed Anonymous. The relevant section starts at 3:29:
FBI brags of the ‘dismantlement’ of Anonymous
The program notes:
A FBI agent in charge of the cyber division in New York recently claimed due to the ‘dismantlement’ of the key players of the hacktivist group, Anonymous, the movement is no longer coming forward with “large breaches.” Pete Pachal, tech editor for Mashable, joins us to talk about this and all things tech.
