(6.7.2013) The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world’s oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light. And one of the biggest operators of those cables was being sold to an Asian firm, potentially complicating American surveillance efforts.

Enter “Team Telecom.”

(8.11.2012)Weltweit nimmt der Einsatz von Deep Packet Inspection Technologien zu. In autoritären Staaten werden damit Internet-Seiten und Suchbegriffe zensiert sowie Benutzer überwacht. Doch die selbe Technik ist auch bei deutschen Providern im Einsatz, gegen Skype und Filesharing. Der Unterschied ist nur eine Konfigurationsdatei – die kann per Mausklick blitzschnell geändert werden.

Starting on January 1, the country of Kazakhstan has formally declared war on privacy, encryption, and a secure Internet. A new law takes effect in the new year that will require all citizens of the country to install a national, government-mandated security certificate allowing the interception of all encrypted citizen communications. In short, the country has decided that it would be a downright nifty idea to break HTTPS and SSL, essentially launching a „man in the middle“ attack on every resident of the country.

(1.12.2015) Einen Richterbeschluss brauchen die Ermittler nicht zwingend. Dem NSL-Empfänger droht dagegen Ärger, wenn er über den Brief spricht – dafür sorgt in der Regel Anordnung zur Geheimhaltung. Wegen ihr dürfen die Empfänger oft nicht einmal erwähnen, dass sie den Brief bekommen haben.Einen Eindruck davon, für welche Daten sich das FBI in der Vergangenheit interessiert hat, liefert jetzt Nicholas Merrill, der früher einen Webhosting-Dienst betrieb.

(30.11.2015) For years after receiving a national security letter from the FBI, he was an anonymous litigant and unnamed op-ed writer, barred by a gag order from revealing that he had received a warrantless demand for customer information. Now, Nicholas Merrill’s gag order has been lifted in full, and – apparently for the first time – an NSL recipient can speak openly without fear of punishment.

Merrill, owner of now-defunct Calyx Internet Access, provided Internet service to about 200 customers when he received the order in February 2004.

On Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey told senators that the person who opened fire at an anti-Prophet Muhammad event in May sent more than 100 encrypted messages to someone overseas, and the FBI couldn‘t read any of them.

„I‘m not questioning their motivations,“ Comey said of companies who encrypt their data. „The question we have to ask is, ‚Should they change their business model?'“

Rep. Michael McCaul, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee has now given a speech in which he announced plans to introduce legislation that will create a committee to undermine encryption in the tech industry:

This is hardly a surprise, but after Congress had more or less realized that passing a law to undermine encryption wasn‘t a good idea, the clueless surveillance state hawks have used the Paris and San Bernardino attacks as a chance to go for it again. In a hearing this morning, FBI Director James Comey — who has long been leading the charge — explained that he thought tech companies ought to change their business model to drop end-to-end encryption. Ridiculously, he argued that there‘s no „technical issue“ in undermining encryption, just a business decision:

A few years ago, AT&T realized something amazing: you don‘t have to build a cutting edge, fiber to the home broadband network, when it‘s relatively easy to fool the press and public into believing you‘re building cutting edge, fiber to the home network. So as AT&T was actually busy reducing its fixed-line broadband spending and quietly walking away from DSL users it didn‘t want to upgrade, it launched a service it calls „U-Verse with Gigapower.“ Basically, AT&T‘s delivering gigabit speeds to high-end housing developments, then pretending the upgrades are much, much larger than they actually are.

The resignation of Rahmatullah Nabil follows a series of setbacks in recent months including the fall of the northern city of Kunduz to the Taliban and an insurgent raid on Kandahar airport in the south on Tuesday in which 50 civilians, police and security personnel were killed.