Archiv: (internet service) providers (ISPs)


21.02.2024 - 17:20 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

Neue Meldestelle beim BKA: Darf’s auch etwas mehr sein?

Gegenüber netzpolitik.org sagt ein Sprecher des BKA, dass die Behörde „im Prüfungs- und Weiterleitungsprozess Zugriff auf die durch den Hostingdiensteanbieter übermittelten Daten“ habe, also auch auf identifizierende Daten. Derartige Daten seien laut dem BKA erforderlich, um die örtlich zuständige Strafverfolgungsbehörde ermitteln zu können oder um Gefahren abwehren zu können.

20.09.2023 - 22:38 [ Electronic Frontier Foundation ]

Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users

(19.09.2023)

The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the privacy and security of U.K. residents, but internet users worldwide.

A clause of the bill allows Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, to serve a notice requiring tech companies to scan their users–all of them–for child abuse content.This would affect even messages and files that are end-to-end encrypted to protect user privacy. As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.

18.09.2023 - 19:17 [ Wired.co.uk ]

The UK’s Secretive Web Surveillance Program Is Ramping Up

(15.05.2023)

WIRED contacted nine of the UK’s internet service providers and telecom companies asking about their abilities to create and store people’s internet connection records. Eight did not respond to the request for comment. TalkTalk, the only one that did, said it will “meet its obligations” under UK law but couldn’t “confirm or deny” whether ICRs existed.

18.09.2023 - 18:41 [ NewStatesman.com ]

Cameron’s internet filter goes far beyond porn – and that was always the plan

(23 December 2013)

Through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has divided the internet into ‚acceptable‘ and ‚unacceptable‘ categories and cut people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

04.09.2023 - 20:00 [ Freiheitsrechte.org ]

Chat control: incompatible with fundamental rights

Authorities can impose so-called „detection orders“ against providers of interpersonal communications services. This means that authorities can, for example, oblige messenger services to monitor the communications of all their users. It is sufficient that the authority has identified a significant risk that the service in question is being used for the dissemination of depictions of sexual violence against children. Detection orders do not have to be limited to monitoring the communications of specific users who are under suspicion. Instead, authorities can order that the content of all communications of all users of the service be monitored preventively.

21.08.2023 - 13:53 [ Zentralkomitee der Kommunistischen Partei Kubas ]

US-Blockade bleibt Haupthindernis für bessere Konnektivität

Unter dem Vorwand, Havanna stelle eine Bedrohung für die Sicherheit der Vereinigten Staaten dar, wurde das Unterwasserkabelsystem ARCOS-1 USA Inc., das 24 Punkte in 15 Ländern des Kontinents miteinander verbindet, daran gehindert, Kuba in dieses Netz einzubeziehen.
Dies verhinderte, dass Kuba Verbindungen mit Betreibern direkt auf nordamerikanischem Territorium herstellen konnte, wo sich die wichtigsten Verbindungsknoten befinden. Daher ist die kubanische Telekommunikationsgesellschaft gezwungen, das Netz mit Punkten im Vereinigten Königreich, Jamaika und Venezuela zu erweitern, was Millionen von Dollar an Kosten verursacht.

13.05.2023 - 20:46 [ Euractiv.de ]

Trotz Neutralität: Schweiz erwägt Beitritt zu EU-Verteidigungsprojekten

(04.05.2023)

Cyberangriffe seien eines der Instrumente, die für „Wettbewerb, Einschüchterung und Zwang“ eingesetzt werden, so die EU in ihrer im vergangenen Jahr veröffentlichten Sicherheitsstrategie, die darauf hinwies, dass „in den letzten Jahren die klassische Unterscheidung zwischen Krieg und Frieden immer mehr abnimmt.“

Auch die NATO hat den Cyberspace zu einem Bereich erklärt, in dem ein gewisses Maß an Angriffen als Bedrohung definiert werden könnte und ein Mitglied des Militärbündnisses dazu veranlassen könnte, sich auf die Klausel der kollektiven Verteidigung nach Artikel 5 zu berufen.

04.05.2023 - 10:20 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

Cooper Davis Act: US-Senat nimmt Drogen-Chats ins Visier

Anbieter können in ihrem Bericht an die DEA nach eigenem Ermessen entscheiden, welche Informationen sie weitergeben. Gleichzeitig enthält der Gesetzentwurf aber auch eine Liste mit Informationen, die einem solchen Bericht beiliegen sollten. Dazu gehören etwa Mail- und IP-Adressen, Zahlungsinformationen, der geographische Standort sowie ein kompletter Auszug der betreffenden Inhalte. Diese Informationen kann die DEA dann auch an andere Strafverfolgungsbehörden weiterleiten.

Die Daten sollen nicht nur weitergegeben, sondern auch vom Provider an einem „sicheren Ort“ für 90 Tage nach Einreichung bei der DEA gespeichert werden. Im Gesetzentwurf ist jedoch auch vermerkt, dass die DEA eine Verlängerung der Speicherung beantragen kann, wenn sie beabsichtigt, gegen Nutzer*innen zu ermitteln oder die Daten an andere Behörden weiterzuleiten.

Nutzer*innen wissen derweil nichts von der Weiterleitung ihrer Daten.

04.05.2023 - 10:10 [ Techdirt.com ]

Cooper Davis Act: Another Attempt By Congress To Regulate That Which They Don’t Understand

In many ways, this is similar to the CyberTipline for CSAM that requires websites to report details if they come across child sexual abuse material. But, CSAM is strict liability content for which there is no 1st Amendment protection. Demanding that anything even remotely referencing an illegal drug transaction be sent to the DEA will sweep up a ton of perfectly protected speech.

Worse, it will lead to massive overreporting of useless leads. I’ve mentioned just recently that we get a ton of attempted spam comments here at Techdirt, over a million in just the last six months alone. A decent percentage of these appear to be pushing what are likely to be illegal drugs. Now, we catch the vast majority of these in the spam filter, and they never reach the site. And, I don’t think a mere spam comment alone would reach the level of knowledge necessary to trigger this law, but the point is that there’s potential that our lawyers would warn us that to protect ourselves from potentially ruinous liability for failing to report these spam messages to the DEA, they’d recommend we basically flood the DEA with a bunch of the spam messages we received just to avoid the risk of liability.

28.04.2023 - 05:49 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

PEGA-Untersuchungsausschuss: Zwölf EU-Staaten kontrollieren Geheimdienste nicht

Die Regulierung und Kontrolle von Geheimdiensten ist eine nationale Angelegenheit. Deshalb unterscheidet sich die unabhängige Aufsicht zwischen den einzelnen Staaten. Nur 15 der 27 EU-Staaten haben überhaupt unabhängige Aufsichtsbehörden.

27.04.2023 - 18:49 [ CyberScoop.com ]

Return of the EARN IT Act rekindles encryption debate at critical moment for privacy-protecting apps

Additionally, the FBI and Interpol both recently spoke out against encrypted chat apps and lawmakers in the U.K. and European Union are considering laws like the EARN IT Act that could also decrease the availability of encryption.

All these developments could open the next front in the war over encryption that has flared up over the past decade, often pitting law enforcement against civil liberties groups in the U.S. and abroad.

27.04.2023 - 18:39 [ The Technocrat, MIT Technology ]

Why child safety bills are popping up all over the US

The laws also expose the lack of federal protections for everyone’s security, privacy, and freedoms online, regardless of age, says Bailey Sanchez, policy counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, another DC-based think tank. (Current federal laws prohibit websites from collecting data on users under the age of 13.)

“Someday that 17-year-old is going to turn 18, and unless they’re in a handful of states, there is no privacy law that applies to them,” she says.

27.04.2023 - 18:25 [ CPO Magazine ]

Citing Privacy Concerns, WhatsApp, Signal Wage Media Campaign Against UK Online Safety Bill

(April 25, 2023)

WhatsApp and Signal, two of the largest privacy-focused messaging apps, have joined forces to petition against the United Kingdom’s proposed Online Safety Bill due to privacy concerns. They are accompanied in this effort by several other smaller privacy apps, such as Viber and Wire, who have signed on to an open letter directed to UK legislators.

27.04.2023 - 18:11 [ SecurityWeek.com ]

UK Introduces Mass Surveillance With Online Safety Bill

(30.03.2023)

The anomaly is that if the government can access the content, criminals and foreign governments will almost certainly be able to use the same backdoor. (…)

This law will already affect US firms. The real danger is its arguments may spread like a contagion to be used by other governments.

26.04.2023 - 14:18 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

Stop CSAM Act: Neues Gesetz in den USA könnte Verschlüsselung schwächen

Hinzu kommt laut der Bürgerrechtsorganisation auch ein neuer zivilrechtlicher Anspruch, der Privatklagen gegen Internetunternehmen und App-Stores wegen der „Förderung oder Erleichterung“ der Ausbeutung von Kindern, des „Hostings oder Speicherns von Kinderpornografie“ oder des „Zugänglichmachens von Kinderpornografie für jedermann“ ermöglichen soll. Dies geschehe alles auf der Grundlage eines sehr niedrigen Fahrlässigkeitsstandards, so die EFF.

Außerdem wird ein Benachrichtigungs- und Löschsystem geschaffen, das von einem neu geschaffenen Ausschuss für den Schutz von Kindern im Internet beaufsichtigt wird und von den Anbietern verlangt, Inhalte auf Anfrage zu entfernen oder zu deaktivieren, noch bevor eine administrative oder gerichtliche Entscheidung vorliegt, dass es sich bei den Inhalten tatsächlich um CSAM handelt.

Damit geht das geplante Gesetz lange nicht so weit wie die europäische Chatkontrolle oder der britische Online Safety Act, welche derzeit von den Anbietern verlangen, die Kommunikationsinhalte und gespeicherte Dateien vor der Verschlüsselung zu durchsuchen. Dennoch sieht die EFF in den Formulierungen des Gesetzes große Fallstricke:

26.04.2023 - 13:43 [ Techdirt ]

Senator Durbin’s ‘STOP CSAM Act’ Has Some Good Ideas… Mixed In With Some Very Bad Ideas That Will Do More Harm Than Good

(18.04.2023)

It’s “protect the children” season in Congress with the return of KOSA and EARN IT, two terrible bills that attack the internet, and rely on people’s ignorance of how things actually work to pretend they’re making the internet safer, when they’re not. Added to this is Senator Dick Durbin’s STOP CSAM Act, which he’s been touting since February, but only now has officially put out a press release announcing the bill (though, he hasn’t released the actual language of the bill, because that would actually be helpful to people analyzing it). (…)

Notice what’s not talked about? It’s not mentioned how much law enforcement has done to actually track down, arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators. That’s the stat that matters. But it’s missing.

26.04.2023 - 13:22 [ Electronic Frontier Foundation ]

The STOP CSAM Act Would Put Security and Free Speech at Risk

(21.04.2023)

– It makes it a crime for providers to “knowingly host or store” CSAM or “knowingly promote or facilitate” the sexual exploitation of children, including the creation of CSAM, on their platforms.

– It creates a new civil claim and corresponding Section 230 carveout to encourage private lawsuits against internet companies and app stores for the “promotion or facilitation” of child exploitation, the “hosting or storing of child pornography,” or for “making child pornography available to any person”—all based on the very low standard of negligence.

– It requires providers to remove (in addition to reporting and preserving) “apparent” CSAM when they obtain actual knowledge of the content on their platforms.

It creates a notice-and-takedown system overseen by a newly created Child Online Protection Board, requiring providers to remove or disable content upon request even before an administrative or judicial determination that the content is in fact CSAM.

(…)

Because the law already prohibits the distribution of CSAM, the bill’s broad terms could be interpreted as reaching more passive conduct like merely providing an encrypted app.

(…)

Not every platform will have the resources to fight these threats in court, especially newcomers that compete with entrenched giants like Meta and Google.

26.04.2023 - 13:14 [ US Senate Committee on the Judiciary ]

Durbin Introduces Stop CSAM Act to Crack Down on the Proliferation of Child Sex Abuse Material Online

(19.04.2023)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today introduced the Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act of 2023 (STOP CSAM Act), legislation to crack down on the proliferation of child sex abuse material online. To combat this horrific crime, the STOP CSAM Act supports victims and increases accountability and transparency for online platforms.

04.04.2023 - 06:40 [ Haaretz ]

U.S. Used Front Company to Buy Israeli NSO’s Spyware, Report Says

The Times’ investigation, published early Monday, revealed that five days after the Biden administration announced the blacklisting of NSO for activities contrary to the United States’ national security or foreign policy interests, the U.S. purchased a different software from NSO via a front company.

The software is known as “Landmark,” a geolocation system that reveals the exact location of a person by inputting their phone number.

The report comes one week after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning the use of commercial spyware by the American government.

02.04.2023 - 15:46 [ thefastmode.com ]

[Report] Deep Packet Inspection and Encrypted Traffic Visibility for IP Networks

By concealing more layers of critical traffic information, new encryption protocols such as TLS 1.3, TLS 1.3 0-RTT and ESNI have led to a significant loss in traffic visibility, resulting in poor network performance, heightened susceptibility to security risks, and inefficiencies in resource utilization. At the same time, the existing use of decryption methods such as SSL/TLS inspection are continuously challenged by various security, regulatory and practicality issues.

This report, which is based on a survey of 34 leading networking vendors, assesses the evolution of deep packet inspection (DPI) techniques in response to newer and tougher encryption protocols.

15.02.2023 - 21:38 [ theGuardian.com ]

‚Team Jorge‘ unmasked: the secret disinformation team who distort reality – video

A covert team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media have been exposed in a new investigation. The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym ‚Jorge‘. In more than six hours of secretly recorded meetings, Hanan and his team explained how they could gather intelligence on rivals, including by using hacking methods to access Gmail and Telegram accounts

15.02.2023 - 09:34 [ theGuardian.com ]

Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

The investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients.

Hanan told the undercover reporters that his services, which others describe as “black ops”, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe.

15.02.2023 - 09:13 [ Haaretz ]

Hacking, Extortion, Election Interference: These Are the Tools Used by Israel‘s Agents of Chaos and Manipulation

Team Jorge, this investigation believes, works with a residential proxy provider, in order to provide its avatars with local digital identities in the form of real IPs that cannot be found by social media sites.

Team Jorge also seems to work with a cellular provider that serves AIMS in a similar manner, likely giving avatars their local numbers and supplying the infrastructure needed to grant them SMS verification.

The deliberately misleading technical infrastructure also serves to hide such actors. The process creates another layer of plausible deniability between, in this case, Team Jorge, the client and the campaign’s content, and helps them further mask the truth. Or, as Hanan put it in one presentation: „My signal is from Indonesia, the WhatsApp from Hong Kong, Telegram from Germany. And none of them are my numbers.“