Stormbreaker
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NSA collecting 5 billion cellphone location records per day
Hey everyone, the government's tracking you. Quelle surprise. In what has to be one of the least shocking pieces of news to come from the Edward Snowden leaks, The Washington Post is reporting that the National Security Agency has been gathering surveillance data on foreign cellphone users' whereabouts globally, with some Americans potentially caught in the net. The database, which collects about 5 billion records per day, is so vast that not even the NSA has the proper tools to sift through it all. That's not to say the agency hasn't been able to make "good" use of it with analytics programs, though. One such program, ominously labeled Co-Traveler, allows the NSA to determine "behaviorally relevant relationships" based on data from signals intelligence activity designators (or sigads for short) located around the world, including one codenamed "Stormbrew." That's a lot of jargon for what are essentially data hubs that collect geolocation information down to the cell tower level. Co-Traveler can locate targets of interest based on cellphone users moving in tandem, even if they're unknown threats -- frequent meetups with an existing suspect could reveal a close associate, for instance. As we've come to expect by now, both the NSA and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence argue that this location-based surveillance is legal. Agency representatives tell the Post that the collection system doesn't purposefully track Americans. However, the NSA also says it can't determine how many US residents get swept up in these location scans; there are concerns that it's following targets protected by Fourth Amendment search rights. Jon Fingas contributed to this report.
Super spy DS in Alex Rider finally revealed
Back when we first revealed that the Nintendo DS would play a prominent role in the upcoming spy movie Stormrider, we figured this was just some generic tie-in not actually meant to be taken seriously. Well, you'll have to decide for yourself after checking out the trailer for the movie, embedded into the post after the break. We realize that filming probably stopped months ago, but couldn't he have at least gotten a DS Lite to use?
Nintendo DS to star in Alex Rider film
Remember The Wizard? Not only was it the beginning of Fred Savage's loss of innocence, but it was also the first time Nintendo used the silver screen for a major promotion. Now, some 17 years later, Nintendo is at it again, forming a partnership with the creators of a new teen spy movie, Stormbreaker.The film is based on the first novel of Anthony Horowitz's popular Alex Rider series. As the youngest contestant in a Super Mario Galaxy tournament newest recruit of MI6's Special Operations Division, and armed with a modified Power Glove Nintendo DS, Alex is prepared to take on his uncle's killer, one of the most dangerous assassins in the world. Stormbreaker debuts in Europe this summer.
