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Daily Roundup: Microsoft leaks, lens cameras and more!
In today's Daily Roundup, we look at a Microsoft document leaked in 2012 that foreshadowed the Xbox One and HoloLens, take a look at a new lens camera for smartphones from Olympus and discuss the US Navy's new firefighting robot. All that and more can be found past the break.
Report: Cutscene from Halo: Master Chief Collection leaks
A cutscene from Halo: The Master Chief Collection reportedly leaked during a Twitch stream of the game. The video briefly shows a loading screen that lists The Heretic level from Halo 2 before showing Agent Locke talking to Arbiter about hunting down Master Chief. Some viewers believe the scene may bridge the original Halo trilogy with the coming Xbox One exclusive, Halo 5: Guardians, as Locke has a role in the next game in the series. Head past the break to check the video out for yourself, but act fast, as these types of leaked videos tend to disappear quickly. Halo: The Master Chief Collection will launch on November 11 for Xbox One. [Image: Microsoft]
Edward Snowden documentary reveals more about the new leak source (update: New Yorker interview)
The US government insisted that there was a second source leaking intelligence data besides Edward Snowden, and we now have some extra evidence to support this claim. Laura Poitras' just-launched documentary covering the Snowden leaks, Citizenfour, reveals that this mysterious tipster is both higher in the intelligence ranks and, at least at the time the movie was shot, still serving. In other words, the leaker theoretically has access to up-to-the-minute info about the US' surveillance activities. When Snowden sees this information (provided by reporter Glenn Greenwald) in the documentary, he's visibly startled -- even he wasn't aware of another insider.
Bungie confirms Destiny DLC leaks, but DLC is not 'finished'
Leaked info about Destiny's upcoming The Dark Below and House of Wolves DLC is accurate but incomplete, says Bungie Community Manager DeeJ on the official forums today. "We noticed that you noticed that we already have plans for upcoming content packs in Destiny. We do! They have activity names (which may or may not change) and we have a really good idea what they're going to contain. They even have placeholder nodes in the Director, as you've already discovered. But neither of the Expansion Packs we've announced [is] finished. People at Bungie are hard at work to complete content for our first post launch pack, The Dark Below, as I type these words. It will be finished soon. It releases in December. Soon, we'll detail it out for you so you can see exactly what we've been working on." In other Destiny news, Massively's sister site Joystiq offered a handy PSA this morning about unofficial website DestinyPublicEvents.com, which tracks in-game events on timers so you know exactly where the action is.
Dead Man Zero will let you blow the whistle beyond the grave
Head's up, whistleblowers: you're only as good as your backup plan, and one service has set up shop on the dark web to help you spill the beans in case you're "hurt, jailed, or even killed for trying to render a genuine and risky service to our free society." Meet Dead Man Zero. For the low, low price of 0.3 Bitcoins (at time of writing, that works out to just over $130), you can have digital dead man's switch to make sure that word gets out about what you were working on... and just maybe who may have been behind your disappearance or demise.
US military bans staff from reading a site devoted to leaks
Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras launched their own news site, The Intercept, to post high-profile leaks without worrying about the hassles that can come with publishing through major media outlets. They don't have to worry that an outside editor will put the kibosh on an Edward Snowden story due to government pressure, for instance. However, that isn't precluding officials from doing what they can to limit access. The US military has issued directives that ban staff from reading The Intercept due to the classified material that frequently pops up, particularly from a new reported leak source. Workers caught browsing the content might face "long term security issues," one such memo warns. And that's if they can read it at all; people in multiple military branches say the site is blocked altogether.
Engadget Daily: the culture of leaks, surviving music festivals and more!
Today, we investigate the culture of leaks, learn how to enhance your music festival experience, review the first Chromebook to feature an i3 processor, watch a robot assemble itself and more. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last 24 hours.
Leaks, lies and the bottom line
"The iPhone 6 will be released globally on September 19th," an email in my inbox reads. I don't know who the tipster is, nor how they came across this nugget of information. The communication came from an email service called Leak, which allows anyone to send emails anonymously so the receiver can't trace it or reply to it. It could've come from Apple CEO Tim Cook himself and I'd have no way of knowing. (Though I doubt it.) Leaks like this not only show up all the time, they've increased in number over the years -- and now that it's easy to start anonymous rumors without accountability, our inboxes will simply give up. We are becoming a leak-obsessed culture. Nearly everyone wants to know about tomorrow's devices, today, and few (if any) smartphones get launched without someone spilling the beans. The next iPhone hasn't even been announced yet, but millions of people already think they know what it looks like and what it will do, thanks to images of its supposed chassis, casing and sapphire display. Even if the leaks aren't accurate, it's too late -- there are likely plenty of folks who have already (bizarrely) decided whether to buy it or not.
US government says someone besides Snowden is leaking secret docs
Due to content of a report from The Intercept, the US government says that there's a new whistle blower leaking its secrets in addition to Edward Snowden. The article details national security documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013 -- after the former NSA contractor left the US for Russia. Focusing on databases used to organize suspected terrorists' identities, the report details one specific repository -- the Terrorist Identities Datamart Enivornment (TIDE) -- that now tallies a million names. According to The Intercept, 680,000 suspects make up the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) portion of TIDE, with over 40 percent (280,000 to be exact) labeled by the government as having no affiliation with a terrorist group. Documents also shed light on how the screening system has expanded under the Obama Administration to include the collection of biometric data (facial images, fingerprints, and iris scans) of watchlisted Americans. What's more, part of the process included pulling records for every person with a driver's license in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin in the time leading up to the Chicago Marathon. [(Photo credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Australian bill would jail those who report on leaked spying operations
Journalists in the US and UK may be relatively safe from the government's wrath when they report on surveillance leaks from the likes of Edward Snowden, but the Australian press may have to tread carefully before too long. Attorney General George Brandis has presented a bill that would make it a crime to reveal information that might "prejudice the effective conduct" of "special intelligence operations," such as those from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). It also creates new charges specific to people who might become whistleblowers, such as contractors and the spies themselves.
Hackers use Snowden leaks to reverse-engineer NSA surveillance devices
Over the past year, we've learned of the many techniques the NSA has used to tap into global communications. However, Edward Snowden's document leaks didn't just uncover the gadgets the agency used, they also gave security researchers the necessary insights to develop their own. After the NSA's classified Advanced Network Technology catalogue was published, Michael Ossmann and his team set about recreating two of its approved radio-based surveillance devices: one that could be fixed to a computer's monitor connector to send on-screen images and another that can be fixed to a keyboard cable to collect keystrokes.
NSA claims Snowden only sent one email questioning surveillance tactics
The man behind the biggest leak of United States government secrets in history, Edward Snowden, is having his reputation challenged by the very entity he sought to call out, the National Security Agency (NSA). According to the agency, only one email can be found which relates to him raising concerns internally about government surveillance overreach. That stands in stark contrast to what Snowden told reporters Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in Hong Kong last summer, where he first detailed his history and the wealth of information he'd taken. "They would say 'this isn't your job,' or you'd be told you don't have enough information to make those kinds of judgments," Snowden says in Greenwald's recent book, No Place to Hide. "You'd basically be instructed not to worry about it."
The NSA is recording all cellphone calls in the Bahamas
You might want to be careful of what you say over the phone the next time you visit the Bahamas. According to The Intercept, NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the security agency is not just listening to all mobile calls made to, from and within the island nation, but also recording and archiving them for up to a month. Apparently the access was legally obtained via the US Drug Enforcement Administration and is part of a top-secret program called SOMALGET, which itself is a piece of MYSTIC, a larger NSA program that The Washington Post wrote about in March. While MYSTIC can detect metadata such as the time, location and date of the call, SOMALGET can supposedly store "full-take audio" or the call's entire contents.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare confirmed, out in November
Update: Activision's posted the official trailer, confirming Destructoid's leak. The new Spacey-based shooter is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and it's out on November 4, 2014. Earlier today, Destructoid said it learned through a "trusted source" the game centers on a mercenary group led by Kevin Spacey's character, and this renegade faction has the US government in its sights. That tallied with what Activision's teased, and the publisher's now released an official video ahead of the expected reveal on Sunday, May 4. The trailer showcases futuristic elements like soldiers clad in beefy-looking exoskeletons, and a whole bunch of hover-things including hover-bikes(!). We'll keep you updated on further details as they trickle out. [Image: Destructoid]
Breakfast Topic: Why I'm not reading the spoilers
I'm going to be doing something different this time around in the beta -- I'm not going to be reading all the leaks and spoilers. Over the past decade I've had all of Warcraft spoiled for me, there's never been a surprise that I didn't know about well in advance. And really that means there's never been a surprise at all. That's disappointing. I knew for months what happened at the end of Wrath, we heard long ago who the "big bad" of MoP was going to be. In my line of work finding out these things is par for the course. A lot of time we don't publish anything because they're just rumors; but obviously some of them become true. This time though? I'm not going to pay attention to them. Already I'm making it a point not to read quest text or conversation strings. I'm not going to watch videos of cinematics, and I'm not going to participate in lore discussions when leaks or spoilers are involved. In fact, I'm going to do everything I possibly can from editing those posts. There's other editors around that can do that. /cough Alex and Anne I know some of you are going to want to read them. Heck I can see it in the hits every time we post a spoiler (I'm looking at you new leader of the Horde post, which was one of AOL's most viewed posts the day it happened). We'll still do that stuff. But you know what? I'm just going to close my eyes and pretend they don't exist. As long as Alex and Anne don't kill me.
BlackBerry CEO promises legal action against product leakers
Leaks are par for the course when you're a huge company working on a new product, but one BlackBerry leaker seems to have gone too far. At least, CEO John Chen thinks so: today he penned a post on the official Inside BlackBerry blog promising legal action against a leaker who "falsely posed as an employee of one of [BlackBerry's] carrier partners to obtain access to secured networks." Ouch.
The NSA can reportedly collect 100 percent of an unnamed country's phone calls
The NSA is capable of recording 100 percent of a country's telephone calls, according to sources who spoke with The Washington Post. Adding to the intrigue, the Post says it's "withholding details that could be used to identify the country where the system is being employed," implying that this surveillance method is used outside the US. It's also unclear whether the NSA's so-called MYSTIC voice-interception program (yep, that's the emblem above) is actually recording 100 percent of this country's calls, or whether it simply has the ability.
WhatsApp's VoIP feature for iOS revealed in leaked screenshots
Just a few weeks after WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum hinted that his Facebook-owned service will integrate voice communication features (VoIP, specifically) into its apps by this summer, we're finally seeing alleged screenshots that show off what it'll look like on iOS. The shots, which were leaked by iPhoneItalia, show an interface that looks awfully similar to the iOS 7.1 phone UI -- complete with circular buttons, blurred background and even a similar keyboard (is the shift key on or off?), albeit with a camera button on top. We're hearing that you'll be able to make calls for free over WiFi or cellular, which will help WhatsApp compete against the litany of other VoIP apps and services available on the market.
New HTC One dual-lens camera shown off in detailed leak
Leaked images and videos of the HTC One's successor are a dime a dozen, so we've already seen every possible nook and cranny of the device. Why, then, are we reporting on the latest find by @evleaks? It gives us the closest and clearest look of HTC's rumored dual-lens camera setup so far, which is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing features on the phone. It features a smaller lens just above HTC's standard lens and dual-LED flash, but the purpose of is still a complete mystery. Plenty of theories exist, and we reported on the most likely possibilities demoed at Mobile World Congress last week. Ideas include the ability to cleanly magnify distant subjects without using digital zoom, enhancing low-light performance (which was an area HTC focused on with the One), quicker autofocus and the ability to change a picture's depth of field. Whether or not these particular benefits show up, it's hard to dispute that a parallel-lens setup is indeed coming to HTC's new flagship smartphone.
British spy agency reportedly collected millions of webcam images from Yahoo users
Britain's surveillance agency, GCHQ, hasn't fared much better than the NSA these past several months; the latest leak shared with the Guardian claims that Britain has been collecting millions of webcam images from Yahoo users. What's more, it appears that these images were used to discover "targets" and match users with existing persons of interest via automated facial recognition. According to documents provided by Edward Snowden, GCHQ intercepted still images of Yahoo video calls -- including those done with Yahoo Messenger -- in bulk and saved them as part of a program code-named Optic Nerve. The agency apparently collected these images whether or not users were deemed intelligence targets -- in a six-month period in 2008, it amassed webcam pics from more than 1.8 million Yahoo users around the globe. The documents also reveal that these images were collected with the purpose of identifying targets using facial-recognition tools to compare Yahoo users to existing GCHQ targets.
