Explanation How To Remove The Microphone From Your iPhone And MacBook

Those who do not want to risk using a hacked iPhone or MacBook as a listening device can choose to remove the built-in microphone. Calls can then only be made by connecting a headset with a microphone, for example.

"There is no reason why these devices need those sensors to function," says Kyle Wiens from repair company iFixit opposite Wired . "And taking them apart to remove the microphone is not more difficult than repairing them." Users can switch off the microphone or even insert a cut-off jack in the microphone socket if it is already present, but according to experts this does not offer sufficient protection.

According to Richard George, a former technical director of the NSA who was involved in the design of the secure BlackBerry of President Obama, the trick with the microphone jack is not enough. A malicious application could bypass the fake microphone and still enable the real microphone. Anyone who wants to be sure of his case can also remove the microphone or have it done.

In the case of a MacBook, this appears to be fairly simple. So iFixit even has a manual for it. The microphone can also easily be connected again. The same operation with the iPhone is a lot more difficult and permanent. The iPhone also has four built-in microphones. Once again, iFixit offers extensive instructions for doing this yourself. A repair company that Wired spoke costs 75 dollars and says twice for privacy-oriented customers.

Last year whistleblower Edward Snowden advised that people who do not want to be spied or tapped would be wise to remove the microphone and camera from their smartphone. Recently, however , the Public Prosecutor announced that legitimate users have no reason to "demolish" the microphone from their device. The verdict was made in connection with the investigation into Ennetcom, a company that supplied custom BlackBerry smartphones to communicate encrypted. The microphone was removed from these phones.

Snowden: Encryption Can Hinder Contact With Aliens

Although he is a strong supporter of encrypted communications, the use of encryption make it difficult to capture extraterrestrial signals and communications, says whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden recently appeared on Star Talk, the radio show astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who last year with Cosmos: A Space Odyssey Time had a popular television series about the cosmos.

During the interview Snowden showed that extraterrestrial civilizations would encrypt their communications probably just like people do on earth. That could also be the reason that alien communication still not been collected. "If you're an alien civilization trying to listen to other civilizations or our civilization that listens to aliens, there is only a small stage in the development of their society, all of their communications sent via the most primitive and insecure ways," says the whistleblower.

After this, the default message will be encrypted and will not be recognized. According to Snowden could it be that we received extraterrestrial television shows or calls, but it does not differ from cosmic background radiation for us. We would have by not even in that case we hear extraterrestrial communications. "Assuming they not have the same security problems as we have," replied Tyson. The conversation went wide aliens on several other topics. The section on alien communication can be heard from 33:00 minutes.

Anti-Virus Companies Were Targeted GCHQ And NSA

Several anti-virus companies in the past have been the target of US and British intelligence, focusing in particular went to the Russian virus fighter Kaspersky Lab, according to documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2008.

The US NSA and the British GCHQ looked for ways to circumvent virus and other security software. The e-mail traffic was monitored in order to bring users of anti-virus software identified. The documents also show that British intelligence software Kaspersky wanted to reverse engineer and that the NSA was looking for vulnerabilities. US intelligence also shows traffic between the servers and Kaspersky users have viewed the software.

In 2008 discovered a research team from the NSA that the Kaspersky software users sensitive information sent back to the company's servers. This information could easily be captured to track users, says a report. The NSA would have intercepted e-mails, which were intended for security companies and which were warned of new viruses and vulnerabilities, reports the intercept today using different Snowden documents.

According to researcher Joxean Koret anti-virus software is an attractive target for attackers. The software often takes the highest rates in the system. An attack on a virus an attacker could cause these rights. Moreover, the security of many anti-virus software to be desired and even years on other client applications such as browsers and document readers behind, Koret said. "It means that Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word or Google Chrome are much more difficult to attack than 90% of the virus." It was recently announced that Kaspersky Lab was the victim of a sophisticated attack carried out by a state, according to the virus fighter.

WikiLeaks Published 276,000 Stolen Sony Documents

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has re papers by Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) put online late last year during a burglary at the company were stolen. It is the largest publication of stolen Sony documents so far. In April WikiLeaks launched the " Sony Archive ", containing over 30,000 documents and 173,000 e-mails. A few weeks later, in May, followed by a new publication round with thousands of stolen documents.

Now let WikiLeaks know that more than 276,000 stolen documents, Sony has put online. According to the whistleblower website the stolen emails and documents are newsworthy offering online archive a special glimpse into the workings of a large "mystery" multinational that would have ties to both the White House and the US military-industrial complex. After the online publication of the Sony Archive Sony responded furiously condemning WikiLeaks.

Edward Snowden Praises Privacy Posture Apple

Whistleblower Edward Snowden is very positive attitude about privacy and Apple's business model, which Cupertino users of data collected and not used to earn money, he left opposite TechCrunch know. Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple's commitment to privacy and businesses that the data from their users cashing are wrong.

According to Snowden does not matter whether Cook speaks the truth. "What's really important is that he has a commercial reason itself from competitors like Google to distinguish." If the business model of Apple, however, will mean that information is collected and sold, according to the whistleblower's right to privacy and users. "We need to support vendors that want to innovate," he noted.

Especially when the competition can be entered in this way companies make money by collecting data. If Apple does not respect the privacy promise this will have the confidence of users and harm far greater implications for the company. Snowden, however, hopes that Cook will fulfill his promises.

Amazon Denies Involvement In PRISM Program

Amazon did not participate in the PRISM program by the NSA, as the Internet giant has during the presentation of the first transparency report ( pdf ) let you know. PRISM was unveiled in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden. It turned out to be a secret surveillance program of US intelligence that data of at least nine major US Internet companies collected. Amazon, however, was one of the companies not in the NSA slides stated.

In the announcement of the transparency report states that Amazon also regularly goes to subpoenas from the government to appeal customer data. However, it is handed over or information in the majority of cases, as appears from the own figures.From 1 January 2015 to 31 May this year, Amazon received from the US government 813 subpoenas. In 542 cases, all requested information has been submitted and 126 time it was partial information. In 145 cases, no information was ceded.

Amazon also received the American investigators 25 "search warrants", where 13 cases were fully cooperated and in 8 cases partially. Four times they did not even ceded. Besides the US authorities also knocked foreign governments at Amazon. In total there are 132 requests, which was 108 times fully co-operated and 7 part time. 17 times Amazon decided not to provide the information requested. Whether the Dutch authorities have filed requests with Amazon is unknown, since no breakdown by country is made, as in the example transparency reports of Yahoo, Twitter, and Google is the case.

British Spies Transferred Because Snowden Documents

The British government has spies transferred after their method through documents whistleblower Edward Snowden in Russia and China has become known. That report the BBC and Sunday Times today.According to sources, Moscow and Beijing managed to decrypt the encrypted documents Snowden.

Therefore, the method of British spies would now be known and that has led to Britain's "vital information" no longer able to collect, an anonymous government source told the BBC. In addition to Britain were also other Western intelligence personnel have been transferred after Moscow had managed to crack more than a million confidential files Snowden. The whistleblower spent some time in Hong Kong before he eventually received asylum in Russia.

He has always said that nobody has gotten his hands on files, but the Sunday Times says it has learned that Russia and China do have the information by government officials and intelligence agencies. However, there would be no British spies because something happened to them. However, the British government will not comment on the matter, reports the Guardian .

Research: NSA Spying Cost Billions Of US Tech Companies

The espionage activities of the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed and is still not enough suitable legislation that would possibly cost US tech companies billions of dollars. Thus, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) in a new report ( pdf ).

By not sufficient reform of American surveillance policy would reach US tech companies damage, which in turn will cost American jobs and American trade weakened. The ITIF estimated in 2013 that a small decrease in foreign companies that do not use American cloud services in 2016, the US could cost between 21.5 billion and 35 billion dollars. According to the foundation now appears that only the new cloud sector has been hit by the NSA spying, but other sectors underachievement.The damage will probably also unpack much higher than the estimated $ 35 billion.

"In summary, foreign clients avoid US companies," the researchers conclude that describe different economic consequences in their report. They also argue that, since recently the Congress a espionage law modified so that the NSA should not massively collect phone records of US citizens, other controversial digital surveillance activities of US intelligence to be addressed.

NSA Should Stop Large-Scale Data Storage Phone

The US National Security Agency, the mass collection of phone records of US citizens now stop the Senate no agreement has been reached on an extension of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Through this legislation, the NSA was authorized to store massive conversation data and store. In total expired three commissions of the Patriot Act, says civil rights movement EFF .

It is the section that used to store the state of your phone data and business data, the " lone wolf "provision and" roving wiretap "provision. Preliminary section 215 will be reversed to the state of the Patriot Act, which does not allow financial or communication data storage and requires the government consults specific facts to show that works a target for a foreign government.

During a heated debate showed Sen. Rand Paul know that he is afraid that the new legislation would introduce the US government, the Freedom Act, the NSA still gives wide powers. The new standards would require that telecommunications companies to store the data, which can then be retrieved after a court order by the NSA. According to Paul, his general orders the reason that the American Revolution was fought.

Senator Bob Corker said that the government has the effectiveness of a major program to national security limits as well as the ability to fight terrorists. Other senators are calling for swift action to take and implement the Freedom Act. Despite the expiration of Section 215 of the EFF states that the US government had sufficient authority has to store and process data.

Companies Change Delivery Address Cisco Equipment Due To NSA

Some companies use other delivery addresses when ordering equipment from Cisco in order to evade the NSA, so, Cisco CEO John Stewart at a conference to know. Following his revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, showing that the NSA intercepted orders such as routers and then provides a backdoor. On one of the photos that were shown publicly through Snowden how NSA staff a box of Cisco equipment opens.

Stewart, chief security and trust officer at the networking giant says that it prevents companies specify delivery addresses that have nothing to do with the client, reports PC World . This should make it theoretically difficult for the NSA to focus on a particular company. Stewart did know, however, that once Cisco provides the equipment to a shipping company, it has no control anymore. However, Cisco could collaborate with customers to better control the integrity of delivered systems.

Yet then Stewart will always be risks that can not be avoided. "As a truly motivated team it has provided you, and they do this for a long period of time, this increases the chance that they will succeed again." Stewart was at the conference whether Cisco has ever encountered strange hardware in its own products which was placed there. "No, and that we could not know, because the only people who know for sure that the NSA," the CEO said.

Security Expert: Apple Wins Battle Of CIA

This week, The Intercept with a message about attempts by the CIA to crack the security of iPhones and iPads, but according to security expert Robert Graham Apple wins the battle of the American intelligence service. Intercept relies in its own article on documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden, but according to Graham's website saves the completely wrong in its interpretation.

During various conferences CIA would have looked at how information from iPhones can be decrypted. In 2011, when the conference took place, was decrypting encrypted iPhone data time-intensive and did not always work, says Graham. "The context of the presentation was not that she secretly wanted to spy on anyone. The context was that they wanted to decrypt the phones they received."

Contrary to what is in the article The Intercept is claimed Apple would actually win the battle of the CIA, Graham notes."Apple has made it priceless with the iPhone 4 to find out secrets, except in the most important situations, such as phones from the house of Bin Laden." The expert suggests that the iPhone 6 is likely to become impossible. "If the CIA comes to me, I doubt if they managed to get some information from my iPhone."

Xcode
Graham also discusses the trojaning Xcode, the Apple development tool for compiling iOS apps. This intelligence in all apps loopholes could build. "The CIA is not working to the Xcode that everyone used to trojaning. That would be impossible. They trojaning not the version that Apple provides to developers." Who has need Xcode installed according Graham whatsoever to worry.

Even iPhone users would not have to be afraid that Angry Birds contains a backdoor. "The purpose of the CIA are the hundred users of hawala-like app to make money, which is used only by legitimate targets. " In this case, the CIA would the developer of this app to break his or her Xcode a backdoor provided so that eventually all users of the app can be identified.

Canadian Secret Service Would Monitor Millions Of Downloads

Canadian secret service would monitor millions of daily downloads of Internet users, such as videos, photos, music and other files, according to documents Edward Snowden. According to the documents, the Levitation program of the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE) downloads in several European countries, the Middle East, North Africa and North America monitors.

Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the program compares with a "giant X-ray machine on our digital lives." Any files that users download and upload to popular websites and are collected and analyzed, says Deibert. The download and upload details are kept in a total of 102 different file sharing sites. Only three sites are mentioned by name, ie Rapidshare, SendSpace and the now defunct Megaupload.

The data would be collected directly by tapping the internet cables. Then the IP address of each computer that files downloaded from the websites collected in question. Analysts of the CFE use the IP addresses then in other surveillance databases where they have access to. In this way can be determined on the basis of the collected IP addresses which sites these people even more visits and in some cases what their Google or Facebook accounts.

The documents show that the CSE kept a list of 2,200 special downloads that was suspicious or interesting. Internet users who have downloaded these files could possibly get extra attention from the secret service, says The Intercept that the news about the spying program with CBC News brought out. The documents do not specify whether the Levitation program has ever helped prevent a terrorist attack.

Kaspersky: NSA Involved Regin Malware

The US National Security Agency is involved or responsible for the advanced Regin-malware , according to the Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab. The virus fighter relies on an analysis of the virus code and files that were leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel published the documents ( pdf ) and files on 17 January this year. Under the leaked files also contained a keylogger codenamed QWERTY that would be developed by the NSA. Researchers analyzed this keylogger and discovered that the code is identical to a plug-in of the Regin malware. The researchers noted that the QWERTY keylogger can not be used as a separate module, but is dependent on functionality that is provided by a Regin module.

"Given the extreme complexity of the Regin platform and the small chance that it can be imitated by someone who has no access to the source code, we conclude that the developers of the QWERTY malware and Regin developers are the same or collaborate" says research director Costin Raiu. Previously suggested the Dutch security firm Fox-IT that the malware was created by the NSA or British secret service GCHQ.

Regin, according to Symantec's already in use since 2008, while Kaspersky Lab even a compilation date of 1999 saw over.Include Belgacom and an employee of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be attacked by the malware. The espionage malware used a variety of techniques to avoid detection. So it is still unknown how Regin infects computers."Regin stands alone. It is certainly more complex than Stuxnet and Flame when it comes to the design of the platform, functionality and flexibility," Raiu had previously know.

QWERTY 20123.sys:
0ed11a73694999bc45d18b4189f41ac2 (Virustotal Link)

Regin 50251 plugins:
c0de81512a08bdf2ec18cb93b43bdc2d
e9a43ea2882ac63b7bc036d954c79aa1