Google Spends $3.2 Billion To Control Every Object In The House Of The Future.....can you hear me now?

Google Spends $3.2 Billion To Control Every Object In The House Of The Future.(MotherboardVice)

After investing millions into smart thermostat company Nest, a shining star of the "internet of things" megatrend, Google just bit the bullet and decided to buy the company today, for an impressive $3.2 billion in cash. Google being Google, it’s staying tight-lipped about how the purchase fits into its grand plan. But considering some of the other moves the company's been making lately, it's not hard to speculate what it's angling at here.

Buying Nest is Google's play for one of the holy grails of future tech trends: the connected home. It's the tech giant's way into your living room, as the parlance goes. The vision of an automated home stocked with sensor-equipped objects gathering data about your every lifestyle habit and talking to each other to cater to your needs is a technoutopian dream that won't die. Not to mention it's estimated to be a multibillion dollar market over the next few years.Read the full story here.

"Yes We Scan" - NSA's Secret Toolbox: Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need.

"Yes We Scan" - NSA's Secret Toolbox: Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need.(Spiegel).

The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency's own catalog.Read the full story here.

White House panel: Little to no indication mass NSA surveillance thwarts terrorism.

White House panel: Little to no indication mass NSA surveillance thwarts terrorism. (RT).

Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, told NBC he was “absolutely” shocked when the review panel’s findings turned up little to no indication that terrorist activity had been identified by the controversial National Security Agency practiced.

“It was, ‘Huh, hello? What are we doing here?’” he said. “The results were very thin.”

The NSA program was one of the first Snowden leaks to be made public in The Guardian and The Washington Post earlier this year. It was revealed that the agency does not listen in on telephone conversations in the US, but does compel major telecommunication companies like Verizon and AT&T to turn over the records – including the time and length of the call as well as the numbers dialed - belonging to millions of Americans.

Stone was among the five members of the White House review panel who were handpicked by the Obama administration to consider if major changes should be enacted to the NSA programs. The group began work on August 27 and has since met with executives from Google and Facebook, as well as lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and even the chief judge of the FISA court.

The panel recommended this week that the massive collection of phone records be stopped immediately to protect Americans’ privacy. They issued this recommendation upon finding that it was “not essential in preventing attacks.”

That assertion blatantly contradicts statements made by President Obama and intelligence leaders for over six months.

“Lives have been saved,” Obama told reporters when the Snowden leak was first reported. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information.”
Yet Stone spared no sympathy for Snowden, saying that the former NSA contractor was wrong to release so much information regarding national security.

“My empathetic view is that a person who has access to classified information – the revelation of which could damage national security – should never take it upon himself to reveal that information,” he said.

Admitting he was using a “somewhat inflammatory” example, Stone compared Snowden’s actions to a crazed gun control advocate.
“Suppose someone decides we need gun control and they go out and kill 15 kids and then a state enacts gun control?” he said, decrying the whistleblower for putting the nation “at risk.”

This week’s recommendation quietly noted that the phone collection program, which uses Section 215 of the Patriot Act as legal justification, has “only made a modest contribution to the nation’s security.” It went on to note that “there has been no instance in which NSA could say with confidence that the outcome [of a terror investigation would have been any different” without section 215, as quoted by NBC.

It also proposed applying oversight to the US’ surveillance on targets outside the country, and increasing internal security in an attempt to stop future leaks. These points came as somewhat of a surprise to some pundits, who dismissed the White House panel as a political ploy that would have no real impact on the security vs. privacy discussion.
“That was stunning. That was the ballgame,” one congressional intelligence official told NBC. “It flies in the face of everything they have tossed at us.”
The President is expected to address the recommendation, and possibly enact some of the proposed changes, sometime in January.

“The message to the NSA is now coming from every branch of government and from every corner of our nation: You have gone too far. The bulk collection of Americans’ data by the US government must end,” Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Friday. “This momentous report from the President’s closest advisers is a vindication of the efforts of a bipartisan group of legislators that has been working for years to protect Americans’ privacy by reining in these intelligence authorities.”

Related:

Obama defends NSA programs during rare White House press conference

Yahoo announces plan to encrypt all customer data, email by 2014.

Yahoo announces plan to encrypt all customer data, email by 2014.(RT).

Mayer published the news in an announcement to customers on Yahoo’s Tumblr page. She acknowledged that the changes are in response to the NSA leaks that began in June, which have outraged the public and challenged internet leaders to come up with an answer. 

“We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it. As you know, there have been a number of reports over the last six months about the US government secretly accessing user data without the knowledge of tech companies, including Yahoo,” she wrote. 
“I want to reiterate what we have said in the past: Yahoo has never given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency. Ever. There is nothing more important to us than protecting our users’ privacy.” 

Mayer said the changes will be implemented by the first quarter of 2014. 
The statement comes less than one month after The Washington Post revealed that the NSA infiltrated the main communication links between Yahoo and Google centers located around the world. By doing so, the NSA essentially gave itself the ability to collect information from hundreds of users’ accounts, most of whom are Americans.  
Working in conjunction with the GCHQ, its British intelligence counterpart, the NSA processed 181,280,466 records showing which users sent or received emails, when they did so, and other context such as text, audio, and video. This program is in addition to the court-approved PRISM program, according to the Post report based on documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. 
Yahoo recently announced that the company plans to better protect the privacy of Yahoo Mail by introducing Secure Sockets Layer - known as SSL - encrypting with a 2048-bit key. According to Mayer’s announcement, the company plans to build on that.
“We will encrypt all information that moves between our data centers by the end of Q1 of 2014,” she wrote, adding that Yahoo plans to “offer users an option to encrypt all data flow to/from Yahoo by the end of Q1 2014, work closely with our international Mail partners to ensure that Yahoo co-branded Mail accounts are https-enabled.” 
This announcement comes after Google went public with a similar encryption initiative that aims to turn messages from text into gibberish when Google is forced to turnover data by court order. Eric Grosse, vice president for security engineering at Google, told The Washington Post in September that such efforts are likely to continue. 

“It’s an arms race,” he said. “We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in the game.” 

Germany, Brazil enlist 19 more countries for anti-NSA UN resolution.

Germany, Brazil enlist 19 more countries for anti-NSA UN resolution.(RT).

The news was reported by Foreign Policy magazine, which has also obtained a copy of the draft text.

The resolution was proposed earlier this week by Germany and Brazil, whose leaders have been some of the most vocal critics of the comprehensive spying methods of the US National Security Agency.

It appears to have gained additional traction after the Guardian newspaper published an internal NSA memo sourced from whistleblower Edward Snowden on Friday, which revealed that at least 35 heads of state had their phones tapped by American intelligence officials.

One of those is likely German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Earlier this week the White House failed to deny that her personal cell phone had been tapped in the past, though it claims that it no longer listens in on Merkel’s private conversations.

Other countries involved in the talks reportedly include Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela.



While the document does not single out the US as the chief electronic spy, its text seems to be a direct response to alleged NSA practices.

The draft says that UN member states are “deeply concerned at human rights violations and abuses that may result from the conduct of extra-territorial surveillance or interception of communications in foreign jurisdictions.”

Snowden’s leaks over the past months have revealed that NSA intercepts data directly from data cables stationed around the world. Internal documents also showed that American intelligence staff did not need a warrant or any other legal basis to freely spy on a non-US citizen.

The proposed document also claims that “illegal surveillance of private communications and the indiscriminate interception of personal data of citizens constitutes a highly intrusive act that violates the rights to freedom of expression and privacy and threatens the foundations of a democratic society.”

As opposed to the targeted spying of the past, where agencies would tap a specific phone or intercept letters addressed to a person, new technologies mean that almost all data that passes through the internet is saved onto the NSA servers. This includes private emails, web searches, and personal data of billions of people. NSA agents then fish out the needed information with precise searches.


The resolution, which is expected to be presented in front of the U.N. General Assembly human rights committee before the end of the year, turns NSA’s activities into an issue of fundamental rights as opposed to international politics, requiring the High Commissioner for Human Rights to present the world community with a report on the issue.

The draft also asks to institute “independent oversight mechanisms” that would curb the untrammelled surveillance, though it does not specify how such a secretive activity could be effectively supervised.

NSA site down due to alleged DDoS attack.

NSA site down due to alleged DDoS attack.(RT).

The website for the United States National Security Agency suddenly went offline Friday.NSA.gov has been unavailable globally as of late Friday afternoon, and Twitter accounts belonging to people loosely affiliated with the Anonymous hacktivism movement have suggested they are responsible.

Twitter users @AnonymousOwn3r and @TruthIzSexy both were quick to comment on the matter, and implied that a distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS, may have been waged as an act of protest against the NSA

Allegations that those users participated in the DDoS — a method of over-loading a website with too much traffic — are currently unverified, and @AnonymousOwn3r has previously taken credit for downing websites in a similar fashion, although those claims have been largely contested.

The crippling of NSA.gov comes amid a series of damning national security documents that have been disclosed without authorization by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The revelations in the leaked documents have impassioned people around the globe outraged by evidence of widespread surveillance operated by the NSA, and a massive “Stop Watching Us” rally is scheduled for Saturday in Washington, DC.

DDoS attacks are illegal in the United States under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, and two cases are currently underway in California and Virginia in which federal judges are weighing in on instances in which members of Anonymous allegedly used the technique to take down an array of sites during anti-copyright campaigns waged by the group in 2010 and 2011. In those cases, so-called hacktivsits are reported to have conspired together to send immense loads of traffic to targeted websites, rendering them inaccessible due to the overload.

Updated:

NSA site went down due to 'internal error', not DDoS attack, agency claims

Ex-Mossad Head: Obama Spies on Us Jews, Too.

Ex-Mossad Head: Obama Spies on Us Jews, Too.(INN).By Maayana Miskin.

The White House listens to Israel’s calls, former Mossad head says. ‘When they think they need to bug phones, they do it.’

It is very likely that American spy agencies are listening in on Israeli leaders’ phone calls, as they are accused of having done in Germany and dozens of other countries, former Mossad head Danny Yatom told Maariv/nrg.“It could very well be that it happened here, too, because when the Americans think they need to listen in on someone, that’s what they do,” he stated.

The White House is probably particularly interested in hearing what Israeli leaders say about regional issues that America is involved in, such as Israel’s talks with the Palestinian Authority, or the deal that Western powers are likely to reach with Iran’s leaders over the Iranian nuclear program, he said.

United States President Barack Obama and his staff want to know what Israeli leaders really think “so that they can counter the arguments Israel brings up regarding these topics,” he explained.
America has been listening in on the leaders of friendly states for years, he noted, and if Israeli phones were bugged, “it wasn’t necessarily only in Netanyahu’s time.”

Yatom took a critical view of the American approach. “The Americans – rightly – see themselves as a superpower, but they are wrong in thinking they can do whatever they want… Ultimately if [allegations of eavesdropping] are proved true, the Americans will have no choice but to apologize for what they did, but they’ll keep doing it,” he said.

Allegations recently surfaced according to which US spy agencies monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone conversations. White House spokespeople have denied the reports.
On Thursday, the Guardian reported that the American National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders. The report was based on a document provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Obama 'admin' alerts foreign services that Snowden has documents on their secret cooperation with U.S.

Obama 'admin' alerts foreign services that Snowden has documents on their secret cooperation with U.S. HT: WashingtonPost.

U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.

Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.The revelation about spying on an ally is causing a diplomatic headache for the United States.

The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.

The notifications come as the Obama administration is scrambling to placate allies after allegations that the NSA has spied on foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The reports have forced the administration to play down operations targeting friends while also attempting to preserve other programs that depend on provisional partners. In either case, trust in the United States may be compromised.

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.

"If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn't be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it," the official said.

Snowden has instructed the reporters with whom he has shared records to use their judgment to avoid publishing anything that would cause harm. "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he told the Guardian newspaper. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."Read the full story here.

Video - Celebrities "Stop Watching US!" they Blast Obama’s Surveillance State, Repeatedly Invoke Richard Nixon.

Video - Celebrities "Stop Watching US!" they Blast Obama’s Surveillance State, Repeatedly Invoke Richard Nixon.HT: NewsBusters.By Matthew Sheffield.

Actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, John Cusack, and Will Wheaton and director Oliver Stone, are among several others appearing in a new video promoting a march in DC this weekend under the tagline “Stop Watching Us.” Even more interestingly, congressman-for-life John Conyers (a prominent Democrat) also appears in the clip as he and others compare the NSA’s spying on Americans to the Watergate scandal.

No one mentions Obama in the clip but it’s interesting also that no one mentions President Bush either, the man who usually gets the main focus of left-wing ire on such matters.

The clip begins with the leaker of the “Pentagon Papers,” Daniel Ellsberg and then continues in a prolonged narration with each successive person in the frame building on the argument.

“Every American is at risk of getting caught up in the NSA dragnet,” Stone says in his first segment.

Cusak points out, correctly, that the intelligence agency’s data collection also includes average Americans who are not suspects in any crime.

“We’ve been misled,” Conyers states as the clip cuts to testimony of the current U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, outright lying to Congress about domestic surveillance.

The clip then alludes to former President Richard Nixon although it does not state in any sort of detail that staffers working for his campaign had engaged in the planting of secret recording devices inside offices of his rivals at the Democratic Party.

“It was wrong then, it’s wrong now,” Cusack adds. “The tools for surveillance have never been more powerful. And the threat to our civil liberties has never been greater.”

The video continues and then gives a plug for the website “Stop Watching Us” which is an effort supported by an across-the-spectrum group of public policy organizations such as the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Libertarian Party, and FreedomWorks. Read the full story here.

Merkel: "The trust between Germany and the US now has to be built anew."

Merkel: "The trust between Germany and the US now has to be built anew."(Spiegel).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel broke her silence Thursday over German allegations that US intelligence agencies tapped her cell phone. Upon arriving at an EU summit in Brussels, Merkel told reporters that the trust between Germany and the US "now has to be built anew."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded sharply Thursday to reports that her cell phone has been the target of United States intelligence gathering. "Spying between friends, that's just not done," she said upon arriving in Brussels for a planned, two-day summit of European Union leaders.

The chancellor confirmed to reporters that she told US President Barack Obama by phone on Wednesday that there needs to be trust among allies and that "such trust now has to be built anew." Spying among friends is unacceptable, Merkel continued, "This applies to every citizen in Germany. Thus, as chancellor, I am responsible for enforcing it."

Several other EU leaders at the summit in Brussels echoed Germany's concerns about US spying. "Facts are facts. We cannot accept this systematic spying, whatever it may be," said Elio di Rupo, the Belgian prime minister. "We need to take measures and I can't imagine measures at the national level. We need to take European measures."

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said: "Our capacity to search for this kind of information is to hinder terrorism, criminal activities, the risk of war. That should be clear."

"This is serious," intoned Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, "I will support [Merkel] completely in her complaint and say that this is not acceptable. I think we need all the facts on the table first."

The latest revelations come on the heels of a French newspaper report this week that the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored millions of French phone calls, prompting Paris to summon the US ambassador for an explanation.

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts.

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts.(Guardian).

The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The confidential memo reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its "customer" departments, such the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.

The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.

The revelation is set to add to mounting diplomatic tensions between the US and its allies, after the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday accused the US of tapping her mobile phone.

After Merkel's allegations became public, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring the phone in the past.

The NSA memo obtained by the Guardian suggests that such surveillance was not isolated, as the agency routinely monitors the phone numbers of world leaders – and even asks for the assistance of other US officials to do so.

The memo, dated October 2006 and which was issued to staff in the agency's Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), was titled "Customers Can Help SID Obtain Targetable Phone Numbers".

It begins by setting out an example of how US officials who mixed with world leaders and politicians could help agency surveillance.

"In one recent case," the memo notes, "a US official provided NSA with 200 phone numbers to 35 world leaders … Despite the fact that the majority is probably available via open source, the PCs [intelligence production centers] have noted 43 previously unknown phone numbers. These numbers plus several others have been tasked."

The document continues by saying the new phone numbers had helped the agency discover still more new contact details to add to their monitoring: "These numbers have provided lead information to other numbers that have subsequently been tasked."Hmmm......Since when are World leaders considered 'TERRORISTS'?Read the full story here.

Former US Senate foreign policy analyst: ‘US spies on others because it can’.

Former US Senate foreign policy analyst: ‘US spies on others because it can’.(presstv).

An American foreign policy analyst says the US spying activities across the globe continues because its Western allies do not object to it, although they are also victimized.

James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst in a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday, said: “The first reason we do it is because we can. We believe that the rules of international conduct that we demand of others, do not apply to us.”

Revelations of massive spying operations by the United States have triggered condemnations across Europe and Latin America.

Germany, France and several other countries have expressed concerns about US spying activities after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden disclosed classified information about US surveillance programs.

France’s President Francois Hollande has demanded answers from his American counterpart Barack Obama about the US National Security Agency’s spying on French citizens.

Mexican interior minister has also ordered a major probe into reports of US electronic spying on Mexico’s current President Enrique Pena Nieto as well as his predecessor Felipe Calderon.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called US President Barack Obama on Wednesday after she learned that the NSA may have monitored her.

Jatras believes that Western countries complain about Washington’s violation of international law but follow whatever they are told to by the US government.

EU to hold Brussels summit amid US spying row

EU to hold Brussels summit amid US spying row, Leader of Germany's Social Democrats says it would be hard to agreeing a free trade deal with the United States if US is spying.HT: Graphic.

An EU summit is due to begin in Brussels with fresh allegations of US spying threatening to overshadow talks.

It comes a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called President Barack Obama over claims that the US had monitored her mobile phone.

France's President Francois Hollande is pressing for the issue to be put on the agenda following reports that millions of French calls had been monitored.

EU leaders will also discuss Europe's economic recovery and immigration

BBC Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt says some leaders are likely to want to use the summit to demand further clarification from Washington over the activities of its National Security Agency (NSA) in Europe.

The US is being called to account by its allies over allegations of spying based on material said to originate from fugitive American leaker Edward Snowden.

Mrs Merkel says she wants US officials to clarify the extent of their surveillance in Germany.Her spokesman said the German leader "views such practices... as completely unacceptable".

Mrs Merkel demanded an "immediate and comprehensive explanation", said Steffen Seibert in a statement."Among close friends and partners, as the Federal Republic of Germany and the US have been for decades, there should be no such monitoring of the communications of a head of government," the statement added.

The BBC's Stephen Evans in Berlin says Germany's morning papers echo a sense of outrage.

A front-page commentary in Thursday's Suddeutscher Zeitung - one of the country's most respected papers - refers to the "biggest affront".

It says an attack on Angela Merkel's mobile phone would be an attack on "her political heart".

The White House said President Obama had told Mrs Merkel that the US was not monitoring her calls and would not in the future. However, it left open the question of whether calls had been listened to in the past.

State-monitoring of phone calls has a particular resonance in Germany - Mrs Merkel herself grew up in East Germany, where phone-tapping was pervasive.

In July, German media carried comments by Edward Snowden suggesting the US National Security Agency worked closely with Germany and other Western states on a "no questions asked" basis, monitoring Germans' internet traffic, emails and phone calls.

"They [the NSA] are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states," Mr Snowden was quoted as saying by Der Spiegel magazine - though Mrs Merkel denied any knowledge of the collaboration.

In June, President Obama assured Chancellor Merkel that German citizens were not being routinely spied upon. At the time, she was criticised by her political opponents for not being more sceptical.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The leader of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Sigmar Gabriel, said on Thursday it would be hard to imagine agreeing a free trade deal with the United States if the U.S. was infringing citizen's rights and privacy.

Gabriel was reacting to information received by Berlin that the United States may have tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, and which has triggered outrage in Germany.

The SPD and Merkel's conservatives are currently engaged in talks on building a new coalition government
 Hmmmm....I he really wanted to destroy America as a Superpower......Would he do anything different? HE manages to turn every longtime ally of the U.S. against the U.S..

Video - Obama assures Merkel her phone will not be monitored, says White House.

Video - Obama assures Merkel her phone will not be monitored, says White House.

White House spokesman Jay Carney confirms that US president Barack Obama has spoken with German chancellor Merkel after allegations that her phone had been tapped. Obama has assured Merkel that her phone is not currently being tapped and will not be in future. The outrage in Berlin came days after President Francois Hollande of France also confronted Obama with reports that millions of French people's calls have been monitored.Read the full story here.

Hmmmm......Obama in Sweden: Hmmm.......Obama in Sweden: “And I can give assurances to the publics in Europe and around the world that we’re not going around snooping at people’s emails or listening to their phone calls. 

What we try to do is to target very specifically areas of concern. 

Having said that, what I’ve said domestically and what I say to international audiences is with changes in technology, with the growth of our capabilities, if our — if our attitude is, because we can do it we should go ahead and do it, then we may not be, you know, addressing some of the legitimate concerns and dangers that exist anytime we’re talking about intelligence gathering and surveillance.”