When The S*** Hits the Fan

#Google To Begin Alerting Users if #Gmail Account is Targeted by Government

by

Clarice Palmer
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) As privacy advocates celebrate the FBI’s decision to stop harassing Apple over the San Bernardino shooter’s encrypted iPhone, other tech giants seem to have finally noticed that what consumers want is privacy. But for privacy to prevail, the government must stop snooping.

With that idea in mind, Google decided to change how the game is played.

In an official Google blog update detailing new security measures for Gmail, the tech giant announced it would begin alerting consumers whenever the firm detects an account is being targeted — or rather, hacked — by government agencies or their proxies. While the company believes less than 0.1 percent of Gmail users will receive this type of warning, the idea that a tech giant is going to these lengths to give users peace of mind and privacy should give advocacy groups across the country reason to continue celebrating.

Google opened its official statement by announcing the company has a “variety of new protections” in store “that will help keep Gmail users even safer.” The idea, Google added, is to “promote email security best practices across the Internet as a whole.” As one of these efforts, Google announced improvements to its “state-sponsored attack warnings,” a system that has been in place since 2012, when Google began warning Gmail users when their accounts were being targeted by attackers tied to the government.

While these “warnings are rare,” Google noted, “we’re launching a new, full-page warning with instructions about how these users can stay safe.”  The blog pointed out that “the users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.”

Enhancing its warning system is not the only thing Google is doing to keep users safe. According to the tech giant, its “safe browsing” notifications will also be expanded to warn users beforehand that a link they are about to open appears suspicious.

Google will also improve its email encryption securities by partnering with Comcast, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

From BGR:

“Google wants to further improve email encryption, and the company partnered up with Comcast, Microsoft and Yahoo to submit a draft IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] specification for ‘SMTP Strict Transport Security.’ Essentially, Google and its partners want to make sure that encrypted email stays encrypted along its entire path from sender to recipient.”

This idea was originally explored by Google on Safer Internet Day, the day the California company introduced a new tool giving Gmail users a visual warning whenever they receive a message that hasn’t been delivered using encryption. The warning is also displayed whenever a user is about to send an email to an account whose email service provider doesn’t support TLS encryption.

While this step had a positive effect, as Google reported on its blog announcement, the company decided to go even further by partnering with other companies in order to develop a new IETF specification standard. This is intended to help companies “ensure that mail will only be delivered through encrypted channels, and that any encryption failures should be reported for further analysis, helping shine the spotlight on any malfeasance occurring around the Internet.”

The move was Google’s response to research carried out by its researchers, along with the University of Michigan and University of Illinois. According to researchers’ findings, “misconfigured or malicious parts of the Internet can still tamper with email encryption.” That created the necessity for further action in order to protect Gmail users.

This article (Google To Begin Alerting Users if Gmail Account is Targeted by Government) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Clarice Palmer and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

This Stun Gun Looks Like an iPhone, Delivers 3 Million Volts of Electricity

by

Michaela Whitton
March 14, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — When members of the public became concerned that stun guns disguised as iPhones were readily available online to be imported into the U.K, they contacted national advocacy service Whistleblower.co.uk. The group contacted the Sunday Mirror, which launched an investigation into the devices that look and feel like iPhones, yet are capable of delivering over 3 million volts of electricity.

Available online in a variety of disguises, such as phones, torches, and key fobs, the stun guns can be bought and delivered for free in a few days with a couple of clicks. With the look and feel of a cell phone, the high-voltage weapons can be bought for as little as £13.00 ($22) and feature two electrodes at one end for zapping victims.

Claiming the availability of the stun guns could “fuel gang warfare on the streets,” the Sunday Mirror report uses predictably sensationalist language throughout. What it fails to mention is that the majority of buyers are purchasing the items for self defense. Just one sentence devoted to what a tragic indictment it is on today’s society that people are forced to carry high voltage devices on their key fobs — in defence against violent aggressors — wouldn’t have gone amiss but, after all, this was the Mirror.

What it does point to is how easy it is to get hold of the stun guns for malicious purposes, highlights the fact that they are classed as firearms in Britain, and that possession is illegal. While the site selling them is based in the U.S., possession in the U.K. can carry a prison sentence of up to ten years.

The investigation claims to have uncovered a series of prosecutions throughout the U.K. involving criminals importing the stun guns, referring to them throughout as “deadly weapons.” While intended to be non-lethal, there have been many deaths reported following police use of tasers in Britain, prompting Amnesty International to express concern that stun guns are “potentially lethal” weapons.

It says hundreds of the devices are slipping under the radar of the U.K. authorities only to be found in the possession of the likes of Nathan Matthews — the demented killer of Becky Watts — who was found with two stun guns disguised as torches. It also points to a naive holiday maker who was jailed for five years last month — after buying a stun gun designed as an iPhone as a present for a relative and bringing it into to Britain — unaware it was classified as an illegal firearm.

Meanwhile, a quick scan of the reviews for the iStun model from buyers in the U.S. reveal that not only does the device work, but that they are more than happy with their purchase.

“Used it on a drunk parking lot bully who was intimidating my wife, I got out and asked him to lay off, he said hey old man, who is gonna stop me,? you? he grabbed my coat and pushed my back, that is the line for me I stuck it in his rib cage and bully went down like a sack of potatoes he was still making threats as I zapped him again, called the cops and they took him away for threatening an elderly person.”

“This little diddy provides you with confidence to go dark places at night, hangout with shady people, or just yell offensive remarks at random strangers.
When confronted, just say you will ‘give them your iPhone’ as an apology. Then you give em the ol’ 3,800,000 volts and continue on your way.”

Alongside the pros, there are always the cons:

“It looks like an iPhone! My mom called me after I had this bad boy for about 2 days. Naturally I answered the phone. I woke up 2.5 hours later on the ground crying to the smell of burnt hair. Turns out I answered my stun gun! That was an iMistake I only made once. The only long term damage done was to my pride. Good news is, I know it works well.”

Stun GunStun Gun

This article (This Stun Gun Looks Like an iPhone, Delivers 3 Million Volts of Electricity) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

We Just Found out the Real Reason the FBI Wants a Backdoor into the iPhone

by

Jake Anderson
February 24, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) The FBI versus Apple Inc. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object — the feverish momentum of American technocracy accelerating into the cavernous Orwellian entrenchment of the surveillance state. You thought the patent wars were intense? The ‘Battle of the Backdoor’ pits one of America’s most monolithic tech conglomerates against the Department of Justice and, ultimately, the interests of the national security state. And this case is likely only the opening salvo in what will be a decades-long ideological war between tech privacy advocates and the federal government.

On its face, the case boils down to a single locked and encrypted iPhone 5S, used by radical jihadist Syed Rizwan Farook before he and his wide Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people in San Bernardino on December 2nd. The DOJ wants Apple to build a backdoor into the device so that it can bypass the company’s state of the art encryption apparatus and access information and evidence related to the case.

[Read more…]

From theantimedia.org Team