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The National Security Agency's director of information assurance today said the "way to achieve confidence in cyberspace" is to increase collaboration between the government and the high-tech industry--remarks that rang ironic given former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about how NSA works with industry. NSA documents leaked by Snowden showed that the NSA's goal is to build backdoors into commercial products and weaken encryption to make it easier for surveillance, allegations that the U.S. government has not even tried to refute. When asked about that today, NSA director of information assurance Debora Plunkett, who gave the keynote address at the...

The NSA's activities are a massive blow for US computer businesses "It's an ill bird," runs the adage, "that fouls its own nest." Cue the US National Security Agency (NSA), which, we now know, has been busily doing this for quite a while. As the Edward Snowden revelations tumbled out, the scale of the fouling slowly began to dawn on us. Outside of the United States, for example, people suddenly began to have doubts about the wisdom of entrusting their confidential data to cloud services operated by American companies on American soil. As Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president responsible...

Since the beta test launching of Google Glass along with rumors surrounding the secretive Apple iWatch, “wearable tech” is a term frequently popping up in the headlines. We only have conjecture as to what the full scope of Apple's iWatch might be, however, it is difficult to imagine that it will bring revolutionary functions beyond what is already provided by the iPhone and iPad line. It begs the question... (continued)

Samsung unveiled its highly anticipated digital wristwatch Wednesday, beating Apple to what could become this year's must-have holiday gift item. So-called smartwatches, which can perform tasks such as displaying email and Twitter messages on a device worn around the wrist, have been around for several years but have failed so far to inspire great interest among ordinary consumers. But with smartphone behemoths Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. joining the fray—and Google pushing its Google Glass gadget—experts see a chance of wearable computers breaking into the mainstream. That is, if consumers can get used to talking to their watch, secret...

Georgia Tech sophomore Nick Selby on Sunday delivered quite possibly the craziest and most impassioned “welcome back” pep talk in the history of ever. And if it doesn’t excite or inspire you, you made need to check your pulse and make sure you’re breathing.

Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

The number of digitally-connected schools has increased 83 percent during the past 15 years, thanks in part to E-Rate, a $2.3 billion federal program centered on providing schools and libraries with high-speed broadband and wireless Internet. The program has helped to revolutionize learning by facilitating schools’ access to modern telecommunications services and equipment. Today, 97 percent of American classrooms are connected to the Internet. But the needs of schools and libraries have shifted with the ever-evolving technological landscape since Congress established the program in 1996. Bipartisan reports dating back to 2005 called the E-Rate program “a well-intentioned program that nonetheless...

The market for streaming media players may no longer be a two-horse race between Apple and Roku. The introduction of Google's Chromecast has given the category a jolt -- but there were always more fish in the sea than the big two. Now that Google has gotten people talking about streaming media players in earnest, we've canvassed the competition, including some models you may have missed, to gage the strengthes and weaknesses of each.

(Reuters) - The annual Def Con hacking convention has asked the federal government to stay away this year for the first time in its 21-year history, saying Edward Snowden's revelations have made some in the community uncomfortable about having feds there. ... Last year, four-star General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, was a keynote speaker at the event, which is the world's largest annual hacking conference. The audience was respectful, gave modest applause and also asked about secret government snooping. Alexander adamantly denied that the NSA has dossiers on millions of Americans, as some former employees had...

Questions to Freepers using Firefox browser. I understood Adobe was open to hacking, malware and rootkits I use a Firefox browser. I have not been updating my Flash plug-in. Now, I cannot view embedded videos without updating Adobe Flash. Are substitutes available? Are the newer versions of Adobe Flash now secure??

Abstract. We describe the use of formal methods in the development of IRONSIDES, an implementation of DNS with superior performance to both BIND and Windows, the two most common DNS servers on the Internet. More importantly, unlike BIND and Windows, IRONSIDES is impervious to all single-packet denial of service attacks and all forms of remote code execution. Introduction DNS is a protocol essential to the proper functioning of the Internet. The two most common implementations of DNS are the free software version BIND and the implementations that come bundled with various versions of Windows. Unfortunately, despite their ubiquity and...

You’re not running a domestic terrorism group (well, there are those new DHS criteria…). You’re not even sending around emails about what a dismal failure President Obama’s administration is (THIS hour, anyway). You just want to be able to chat with friends, conduct your financial business, and argue with your spouse without Big Daddy Gummint all up in your biz. Believe it or not, that’s your right. Harry “Who Cares” Reid may blow it off and say the government’s been “doing that stuff for years,”but we’ve got a news flash for Harry: just because you’ve been doing it a while...

EDMONTON – When it comes to cell phones, there always seems to be a better model hitting the market. But before you ditch your old phone, make sure it’s completely wiped clean of all your personal information. That may seem obvious enough, but as Adam McKale saw firsthand, it doesn’t always happen. After switching his broken iPhone for a refurbished one at the Apple store in Southgate mall, he couldn’t believe what popped up when he plugged the device into his computer. “It was the guy’s name, all of his contacts, a bunch of his music – which isn’t so...

Mozilla is gearing up for a major user interface overhaul for the open source Firefox web browser. Code-named Australis, the new UI is likely to debut as part of Firefox 25, due out in October of his year.The Australis overhaul will be the biggest UI change since Firefox 4, which became generally available in March of 2011. After Firefox 4, Mozilla changed its release approach, from having only one or two releases in a year, to a rapid release cycle with new browsers released every six to eight weeks."Australis is our internal code name for a set of UI changes...

According to Google's own statistics released today, a version of Android called Gingerbread is the most popular version on Android devices today. This fall, Gingerbread will be three years old. So why are more Android phones running (by tech standards) an ancient operating system? There are a lot of reasons, but the most important one is that companies like Samsung, HTC, and LG that make Android phones are notoriously awful at supporting them with timely software updates after launch. That's because those manufacturers like to customize Android with their own look and special software features, meaning they have to put...

Georgia Institute of Technology has announced a partnership with Udacity to offer an online Masters Degree in Computer Science for $7,000, down 80% from the existing cost of $40,000 for the on-campus, instructor led program. Suddenly, masters programs around the country will have to compete with Georgia Tech‘s $7,000 program, and that won’t be easy or fast in coming. The traditionally taught graduate degree in computer science at Georgia Tech is a very well regarded program that is in high demand and has very positive outcomes in terms of jobs and earnings. Georgia Tech graduates tend to do very well...

Mozilla is out with the Firefox 21 open source browser release today, fixing at least 8 security vulnerabilities, three of which are rated as being critical. The new release also provides new features that – depending on your viewpoint – could either improve or reduce user privacy.One of the new features in Firefox 21 is the Health Report. Mozilla first began talking about the health report in September of 2012 as a non-invasive reporting mechanism. The report is intended to deliver information to users about the 'health' of the browser and its components. The report also shares that data with...

Full title: Snapchats Don't Disappear: Forensics Firm Has Pulled Dozens of Supposedly-Deleted Photos From Android Phones A 24-year-old forensics examiner from Utah has made a discovery that may make some Snapchat users think twice before sending a photo that they think is going to quickly disappear. Richard Hickman of Decipher Forensics found that it’s possible to pull Snapchat photos from Android phones simply by downloading data from the phone using forensics software and removing a “.NoMedia” file extension that was keeping the photos from being viewed on the device. He published his findings online and local TV station KSL has...

ORLANDO—Is it time for humans to get their own black box? That’s the provocative question behind an ambitious project by four undergraduate engineering students from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, presented at this weekend's Cornell Cup in Orlando, Fla. Over the course of a school year, the Amherst team built a prototype “black box for humans” that you could carry around wherever you went, and could be activated to record audio of your surroundings in case you ran into trouble. That audio recording—heavily encrypted, completely tamper-proof and admissible as evidence in a U.S. courtroom, per the Amherst team—would hypothetically...

Located in central Stockholm is the headquarters of Bahnhof, a Swedish Internet Service Provider and host with one of the coolest data centers on the planet. It gained notoriety a few years back as the former home of Wikileaks. Named Pionen White Mountains, it is located 30 meters (100 ft) under the granite rocks of the Vita Berg Park in Stockholm. The location was a former nuclear bunker and command center during the Cold War. It took more than two years to blast out the 141,000 cubic feet of extra space that Bahnhof needed to fit its backup generators and...