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NSA admits to buying Americans’ web browsing data from brokers without warrants
The National Security Agency's director has confirmed that the agency purchases Americans' internet browsing data from commercial brokers without first obtaining warrants.
The NSA has a new security center specifically for guarding against AI
The National Security Agency (NSA) is starting an artificial intelligence security center to safeguard our defense and intelligence systems. This should discourage bad actors from stealing or sabotaging currently-used AI models.
Recommended Reading: How do we deal with giant space garbage?
Recommended Reading highlights the week's best long-form writing on technology and more.
President Biden signs memo to help improve military cybersecurity
President Biden has signed a memorandum to help improve cybersecurity for military and intelligence agencies.
Senate appoints former NSA official as head of US cybersecurity agency
A former NSA official will lead CISA at a time when ransomware and other kinds of cyberattacks are on the rise.
US releases NSA leaker Reality Winner into supervised custody
The US federal government has released Reality Winner from prison into supervised custody
The Pentagon is tracking US citizens without a warrant, Senator says
The Pentagon may be using commercial data to track Americans without due legal process, according to a letter from Senator Ron Wyden.
'United States vs. Reality Winner' is sympathetic, but not essential
'United States vs. Reality Winner' is sympathetic whisteblower documentary that could go a lot deeper.
US intelligence agencies say Russia was likely behind the SolarWinds hack
The FBI, NSA and CISA say it'll take a lot of effort to fix the problem.
SolarWinds hack may have been much wider than first thought
The SolarWinds hack may have compromised many more networks than first thought, and might have taken advantage of weaknesses in the US and Europe.
Trump administration proposes splitting Cyber Command from the NSA
The Trump administration has proposed splitting Cyber Command leadership from the NSA, although it's not clear if the division is ready.
Microsoft confirms it found compromised SolarWinds code in its systems
Various organizations are grappling with the impact of a massive hacking campaign that compromised networks using SolarWinds’ Orion network management tools, and now Microsoft says it found “malicious binaries” on its systems. As Reuters reports, the NSA sent out a cybersecurity advisory on Thursday that specifically referenced Microsoft products like Azure and Active Directory as tools the attackers targeted to gain access to other resources. In a statement, Microsoft confirmed it had found “malicious binaries” on its systems from the attacks, but found no access that anyone had accessed production services or customer data.
Judge rules FBI, NSA broke the law and court orders with data collection
A judge has determined that the FBI and NSA broke the law and court orders when they collected data from email and other US communications.
The NSA tells military personnel to avoid using location services
The NSA has issued a multi-page bulletin, warning US military personnel to protect their location data.
NSA says Russian hackers are trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research
The US, UK and Canada claim Cozy Bear has targeted health care organizations.
Hitting the Books: The media's role in history's most damaging data dump
Disinformation efforts — the organized spread of lies — have proven especially effective in the modern media landscape.
NYT: $100 million US phone surveillance program produced two unique leads
After 2015, the USA Freedom Act replaced NSA mass surveillance of American's call metadata that had been enacted under the Patriot Act and Section 215. While it didn't go so far as to completely reform the system as groups like the EFF and ACLU hoped, it changed things by having phone companies collect the data, under limits of how long it could be stored, with queries performed by agencies with a judge's permission. Even the new rules have had problems, with phone companies storing more data than was legally allowed causing the NSA to wipe all data collected in 2018. Also, even more limited queries could end up touching millions of records. Now the New York Times reports on a just-declassified study by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from last year that looked into the program and found that it had only ever generated two unique leads during the time it was operating. That's out of 15 reports total, but 13 had information the FBI was able to get through other methods, At a cost of over $100 million to operate the setup, this almost complete lack of production reveals more about why the NSA had stopped using it. Sections of the Patriot Act were set to expire in 2019, but despite reported recommendations by the NSA to shut things down, they were extended as part of a funding bill. Now they're up for review again by March 15th, and despite proposed bipartisan legislation intended to replace the program, AG William Barr is again pushing for an extension.
Bipartisan bill would scale back key section of the Patriot Act
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has introduced new legislation that would attempt to reform Section 215 of the Patriot Act definitively. Democratic and Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate have co-sponsored Wyden's Safeguarding Americans' Private Records Act.
Brazil charges journalist Glenn Greenwald for colluding with hackers
Brazilian federal prosecutors have charged Glenn Greenwald with violating the country's cybersecurity laws, reports The New York Times. According to a 95-page complaint, Greenwald was part of the "criminal organization" that hacked into the phones of several public officials and prosecutors in 2019. The charges come after Greenwald's website, The Intercept Brasil, published multiple reports last year that exposed unethical behavior from some of Brazil's highest public officials, including current Justice Minister Sérgio Moro.
