Blogging for the 5th of July Foundation on Security, Privacy and Liberty
China is reinforcing its censorship of the internet with a campaign to crack down on unauthorized connections, including virtual private network (VPN) services, that allow users to bypass restrictions known as the Great Firewall. (…)
The ministry said it was forbidden to create or rent communication channels, including VPNs, without governmental approval, to run cross-border operations.
Reuters: China cracks down on unauthorized internet connections »
Sites on the so-called dark web, or darknet, typically operate under what seems like a privacy paradox: While anyone who knows a dark web site’s address can visit it, no one can figure out who hosts that site, or where. It hides in plain sight. But changes coming to the anonymity tools underlying the darknet promise to make a new kind of online privacy possible. Soon anyone will be able to create their own corner of the internet that’s not just anonymous and untraceable, but entirely undiscoverable without an invite.
Wired: It’s About To Get Even Easier to Hide on the Dark Web »
Blocking a website is like trying to stop lots of trucks from delivering a banned book; it requires an infrastructure of technical tools (things like China’s “Great Firewall”), and enterprising users can often find a way around it. Banning an app from an app store, by contrast, is like shutting down the printing press before the book is ever published. If the app isn’t in a country’s app store, it effectively doesn’t exist. The censorship is nearly total and inescapable.
NYT » Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier »
President Obama commuted the majority of the 35-year sentence faced by Chelsea Manning, a former Army private and whistleblower who supplied diplomatic and military documents to Wikileaks. (…)
The terms of Obama’s commutation will have Manning freed on May 17, 2017, the New York Times reports.
Techcrunch: Chelsea Manning to be freed this May »
Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich sent a letter this week to President Barack Obama requesting that Obama “grant the application for clemency submitted by Chelsea Manning and commute her sentence to time served.” The result of Obama taking this action would be the whistleblower’s prompt release from prison.
Noting that Manning “has already spent more time in prison than anyone previously convicted for providing information to the media,” the two former US House Members who have both run for president in their respective parties’ primaries, declare their belief that Manning “received a sentence that was excessively punitive and intended to send a chilling message to future potential whistleblowers acting in the public interest.”
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul Ask President Obama To Give Chelsea Time Served »
A project tackling issues concerning the public domain in the digital environment has called on the European Commission to abandon its proposals for mandatory service provider filtering of user-uploaded content. Communia, which has Creative Commons as a founder member, says such filters will violate users’ fundamental rights.
Torrentfreak: Public Domain Project Calls on EU to Abandon Piracy Filter Proposals »
Asaf Lubin’s summary of the legislation in Just Security shows how the UK Snoopers Charter, Germany’s Communications Intelligence Gathering Act and France’s International Electronic Communications Law all legalise the kind of surveillance that outraged Europeans and their leaders in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Despite the fact that Europe’s high court has already ruled that this kind of surveillance is illegal, parliaments around the EU continue to pass their own Snoopers Charters, in a race to the bottom with autocratic states like Russia and surveillance-happy nations like the USA.
Boingboing: Germany, France and the UK are moving the EU to continuous, unaccountable, warrantless mass surveillance »
Possible targets might be the administrators of foreign computer networks, government ministries, oil, defense, and other major corporations, as well as suspected terrorist groups or other designated individuals. Similar Quantum operations have targeted OPEC headquarters in Vienna, as well as Belgacom, a Belgian telecom company whose clients include the European Commission and the European Parliament. (…)
Significantly, while WINTERLIGHT was a joint effort between the NSA, the Swedish FRA, and the British GCHQ, the hacking attacks on computers and computer networks seem to have been initiated by the Swedes.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Swedish intelligence agency FRA – together with British GCHQ – declined to participate in the European Parliaments hearings on mass surveillance.
The New York Review of Books: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar »
I cannot say that I am surprised. I have seen this coming, for a long time:
Jambon’s plan takes this initiative [PNR] and applies it to other means of transport. It will mean that anyone wanting to travel by rail, sea or by bus to another EU country will have to register their information.
Fighting terrorism is just a pretext. Politicians want ever more control and surveillance of the people. They will not be satisfied until there is total control.
• Euractiv: Belgium prepares to present passenger data plans to rest of EU »
• Techdirt: Belgium Wants EU Nations To Collect And Store Personal Data Of Train, Bus And Boat Passengers »
Google removed over 900 million pirate site URLs from its search results in 2016. The staggering number is an increase of nearly 100% compared to the year before. While Google has taken some steps to make pirate sites less visible, it continues to disagree with rightsholders on how to move forward.
TorrentFreak: Google Removed Over 900 Million ‘Pirate’ Links in 2016 »