nsa - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Apple, Microsoft Team With White House to Close Tech Gap in Schools

  Tech and telecom firms have pledged more than $750 million in support of Obama's ConnectEd initiative to bring broadband technology and computing tools to classrooms.

• More 'Snowden effect': Defense contractors tighten access for IT, security staff

  IT and security managers at U.S. defense contractors say the impact of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as the symbol of the insider threat has led to tighter security in their organizations -- and it's often meant they have less access privileges.

• German federal prosecutor considers formal NSA investigation

  Germany's federal prosecutor is considering if there is enough evidence to warrant a formal, criminal investigation into the German government's alleged involvement in the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program, a spokeswoman said Monday.

• Obama should have talked about NSA in address, say trade groups

  Technology trade groups faulted President Obama for not using his State of the Union address Tuesday night to address domestic and international concerns over the National Security Agency's surveillance programs.

• NSA gets its first civil liberties and privacy officer

  The National Security Agency has reportedly appointed Rebecca Richards, a former deputy privacy official at the Department of Homeland Security, as its first privacy officer.

• Microsoft lawyer: Let customers decide country where cloud data is stored

  Microsoft will let its foreign cloud customers decide what country their data is stored in as a way to avoid local laws that might compromise their data privacy, the company's top lawyer says.

• TrustyCon vs. RSA and NSA: New conference pushes trustworthy agenda

  Who do you trust? That's a question asked increasingly by a security industry with a growing sense that the National Security Agency (NSA) has sought to weaken encryption or get backdoors into computers, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the media. Now, trust is also the theme of a new conference called TrustyCon that will vie for attention on Feb. 27 in San Francisco while the big RSA Conference for security pros is also taking place in that city.

• Obama's NSA proposals underscore reform challenges

  President Obama's proposals to reform the National Security Agency's surveillance practices reflect the enormous challenges the administration faces in finding the right balance between national security needs and privacy and civil rights concerns.

• Full text of President Obama's intelligence directive

  President Barack Obama today issued new directions for the government's intelligence to follow. Among the items released today were an official Presidential Directive and a Fact Sheet on the details of the new policy.

• President Obama praises NSA, offers little in mass surveillance reform

  President Barack Obama today said his administration is going to change some aspects of how the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies conduct surveillance and hold data collected on U.S and foreign individuals. But his goals fell far short of what was recommended in the 46 proposals for reform of the NSA spelled out last month by the five-member working group he appointed.

• Cisco: Thousands of web hosting centers now launchpads for attacks

  Web hosting centers around the world are being compromised by cyber-criminals that use them to launch major attacks against business and government, says Cisco in its annual security report. This threat really gained full steam last year, the company says.

• Spy agencies around the world use radio signals to tap data from targeted systems

  Reports this week that the National Security Agency uses radio signals to collect data from tens of thousands of non-U.S. computers, some not connected to the Internet, is sure to fuel more acrimony towards the U.S. spy agency.

• Reddit, Mozilla, EFF to hold day of protest, activism in memory of Aaron Swartz

  A broad coalition of well-known organizations announced today that it will stage an online protest against wide-ranging government surveillance of Internet users on Feb. 11, in memory of activist Aaron Swartz.

• The NSA blame game: Singling out RSA diverts attention from others

  RSA may have earned much of the criticism being heaped upon it for allegedly enabling a backdoor in one of its encryption technologies under a contract with the National Security Agency. But singling out the company for reproach deflects attention from the role that other technology vendors may have had in enabling the NSA's data collection activities.

• NSA scandal spooking IT pros in UK, Canada

  The National Security Agency's massive data collection practices that have come to light in the past six months have apparently spooked at least some businesses in Canada and the United Kingdom, based on a survey out today that says many are moving their company's data away from the U.S. due to "the NSA surveillance scandal."