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FBI Director James B. Comey Wants Americans to Let Them Spy on Them

After former U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, said that smartphones are getting too hard to monitor, another shocking statement comes to our attention. FBI Director James B. Comey gave a speech where he pretty much said that Americans should let the FBI to spy on them, for their own safety.

FBI Director James B. Comey Wants You to Let Them Spy on Them

The FBI Director James B. Comey said in a speech yesterday that the adoption of advanced encryption technologies is going to stop law enforcement agents to collect precious information and evidence against criminals.

FBI Director James B. Comey doesn’t like the fact that Apple and Google are getting better at protecting their customers’ data and he wasn’t afraid to say so. Comey basically wants you to let the government spy on you, because that’s the smart thing to do. He went on to cite four cases in which access to laptops and smartphones proved vital to investigations.

Here is a part of his speech:

Those charged with protecting our people aren’t always able to access the evidence we need to prosecute crime and prevent terrorism even with lawful authority. We have the legal authority to intercept and access communications and information pursuant to court order, but we often lack the technical ability to do so.”

FBI Director James B. Comey believes that if we continue to encourage the strengthening of personal data encryption, then the law enforcement agents are going to have a harder time at doing their job.

In short, national security agencies and the US law enforcement want U.S. citizens to let them spy on them. What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you believe that we should allow the government to have access to our personal information?

Russian Hackers Stole more than a Billion Passwords

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You were afraid that your password is not strong enough? Fear no more, because it actually might not matter that much. You might have heard about many passwords and email lists being leaked or hacked, but this is the largest action of a kind ever recorded. New York Times reports about a Russian gang who amassed the largest collection of stolen credentials. The Russian hackers stole 1.2 billion usernames and passwords and more than 500 million emails.

Recently Google announced a grandiose project, Project Zero, meant to ensure security over the internet, with the hope that increased trust will attract more internet users. Maybe that will stop this type of large scale hacking.

The Milwaukee-based company Hold Security discovered the fact. They say that more than 420.000 websites are victims of the large scale action. No names have been disclosed yet, but we can imagine that some of the largest and used websites are among them. Hold Security seems to be a reliable source, according to the New York Times, as they uncovered similar actions in the past.

“Hackers did not just target U.S. companies, they targeted any website they could get, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to very small websites,” said Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security for the New York Times. “And most of these sites are still vulnerable.”

Russian hackers stole a billion password combinations to use it for social network spamming

Until now, the hackers did not offer databases for sale. Instead, they use the stolen information for spamming. Social networks like Twitter are among the victims, with the hackers spamming users while receiving payments for their actions from clients.

“There is a division of labor within the gang,” Mr. Holden said. “Some are writing the programming, some are stealing the data. It’s like you would imagine a small company; everyone is trying to make a living.”

Hold Security has contacts with the hacker world that allow them to trace the activities. They know that this is the action of a Russian gang based in a small city from south central Russia. No more than a dozen men activate compose the gang and they know each other outside of the virtual world as well. Starting as amateurs in 2011, they speeded up their activity in the recent months, possibly after a partnership with another gang. Even if the Russian hackers stole the credentials for spamming, they might use it for other purposes besides spamming.

Blackberry Acquires Secusmart Communication Security Company

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Blackberry was once the king of business mobile phone industry. In the last couple of years, Blackberry went through massive restructuration. After two years, the process comes to an end. John Chen, Blackberry CEO since November 2013, wants to put the company on a new track. Now that Blackberry acquires Secusmart, a new important direction is communication security. Secusmart is a “the leading expert in the development and implementation of comprehensive anti-eavesdropping solutions for German government agencies and organisations responsible for the provision of emergency services as well as governments and public authorities abroad”, according to their presentation.

Privacy concerns rose to unprecedented levels in the last couple of years. The Asange and Snowden affairs convinced governments to tighten up their communication security. In the age of big data, it does not matter so much anymore if the entity is a public or a private body, so corporations intend as well to protect themselves against eavesdropping.

Apple teamed up with IBM to offer iPads and iPhones to corporations seeking specific services and Blackberry attempts to maintain its position with the acquisition of Secusmart. We talked back in June about how Blackberry will now offer all Amazon apps.

Blackberry acquires Secusmart to offer security solutions to public and private bodies

Blackberry and Secusmart have been partners since 2009, but from now on Blackberry wants to have full control over the communication security development plans. Companies, as well as government agencies, are Secusmart clients. The German government wants even more of its members to use Blackberry devices. More than 3000 Ministery of Interior members already use Secusmart equipped Blackberry handsets, according to Ubergizmo. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, uses a Blackberry handset as well, but this did not stop the American foreign intelligence to tap it, causing a diplomatic scandal. Canadian government members use the company’s handsets too.

A phone with Secusmart installed costs 2000 euros, according to ValueWalk. The technology developed by Secusmart applies to mobile phones, as well to landlines, still widely used in the private and public sectors.

Chen says the company will start hire new people soon after the lay-offs will finish at the end of July. The company will hire new people at a slower reserved pace, to avoid past financial mistakes. Blackberry acquires Secusmart and it might be a first step in a new age of growth for the Canadian company.