Secret backdoor conspiracy theory: Criticism of MS Windows

Secret backdoor conspiracy theory

In 1999 Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina found a cryptographic public key stored in the variable _KEY and a second key labeled NSAKEY. The discovery lead to a flurry of speculation and conspiracy theories; such as the second key could be owned by the United States National Security Agency (the NSA), and that it could allow the intelligence agency to subvert any Windows user's security. Also researcher Dr. Nicko van Someren discovered these cryptographic keys and a third key in the ADVAPI.DLL file which, at that time, existed in Windows 2000 before its release. Concerns were raised about CPUs with encrypted instruction sets which, if they existed during that time, would have made it impossible to discover the cryptographic keys.

Microsoft denied the allegations — Microsoft attributes the naming of the key was due to a technical review by the NSA pointing out a backup key was required to conform to regulations.

No evidence other than the name of the key has ever been presented that the key enabled a backdoor.

Cryptographer and computer security specialist Bruce Schneier has also argued against the conspiracy theory pointing out that if the NSA wanted a back door into Windows with Microsoft's consent, they would not need their own cryptographic key to do so.

The cryptographic keys have been included in all versions of Windows from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.

[SOURCE] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft_Windows#Secret_backdoor_conspiracy_theory

[RELATED] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

PRISM (surveillance program): WE ARE WATCHED!

PRISM is a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007.^[1][2][3] PRISM is a government codename for a data collection effort known officially as US-984XN.^[4][5]

Edward Snowden
Born	Edward Joseph Snowden June 21, 1983 (age 29)[1] Elizabeth City, North Carolina, United States
Status	In hiding, last known whereabouts: Hong Kong[2]
Nationality	United States
Occupation	System administrator
Known for	PRISM whistleblower

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden^[6] in June 2013 describe the PRISM program as enabling in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. It provides for the targeting of any customers of participating corporations who live outside the United States, or American citizens whose communications include web content of people outside the United States. Data which the NSA is able to obtain with the PRISM program includes email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details.^[3]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

UK Police Launch Campaign to Shut Down Torrent Sites

City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for “criminal gain.” The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years.

Authorities and entertainment industry companies in the UK are working together on a new initiative which targets sites said to be offering copyrighted material without permission, TorrentFreak has learned.

The first signs came last week when a major torrent site received a letter from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a unit set up following the Government’s National Fraud Review. The unit has a mission to identify serial offenders and organized crime gangs in order to disrupt their activities.

The letter (copy below), sent to “The owners and/or operators of the website known as ‘XXXXX’,” states that the NFIB has become particularly concerned by websites causing harm to the UK’s creative economy.

SOURCES: http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-launch-campaign-to-shut-down-torrent-sites-130604/

Facebook Removes Downloads of Your Posts

This post isn't exactly about math, but it is technical in nature, so I figured I'd get it out there. As part of my regular data-backup process, I routinely download my information archives from whatever online presences I can, such as Facebook (which I've been on since early 2010), Google Blogger (this blog you're reading right now), etc. Obviously on Facebook the thing that I'm most interested in is what I actually write, which are usually called "wall posts" (as opposed to photos or media, which I retain locally anyway). Once in a while I've found it very useful to pull up the downloaded posts file and search it for some particular bit of info, contact, or date. What I seem to have discovered is that sometime in the last few months, Facebook silently and completely removed our ability to download that "wall posts" information.

ORIGINAL LINK AND POST: http://www.angrymath.com/2013/06/facebook-removes-downloads-of-your-posts.html

Take action for free JavaScript

Choosing to run free software on your computer is a powerful statement. Unfortunately, regardless of what you have installed on your desktop or laptop, you are almost certainly running hundreds of nonfree programs as you surf the Web. Web sites often use programs written in JavaScript to expand the capabilities of HTML, adding menus, buttons, text editors, music players, and many other features. Browsers come configured to download and run the JavaScript without ever making the user aware of it. Contrary to popular perception, almost no JavaScript runs "on the Web site" -- it runs locally on users' computers when they visit a site.

Source: 
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/take-action-for-free-javascript
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/05/29/2232224/taking-action-for-free-javascript

Related:
Group:Free Javascript Action Team
Javascript Trap by Richard Stallman

Sabayon 13.04 release

Sabayon 13.04 is a modern and easy to use Linux distribution based on Gentoo, following an extreme, yet reliable, rolling release model.
This is a monthly release generated, tested and published to mirrors by our build servers containing the latest and greatest collection of software available in the Entropy repositories.
The ChangeLog files related to this release are available on our mirrors.

Linux Kernel 3.8.8 (3.8.10 available through updates, 3.9 available in hours) with BFQ iosched and ZFS, GNOME 3.6.3, KDE 4.10.2, MATE 1.6 (thanks to infirit), Xfce 4.10, LibreOffice 4.0, production ready UEFI (and SecureBoot) support and experimental systemd support (including openrc boot speed improvements) are just some of the things you will find inside the box.

Please read on to know where to find the images and their torrent files on our mirrors. Pay attention that there were unreleased 13.04 ISO images previously on our mirrors. Make sure to download images with the correct MD5 checksum though (or just re-download the ISO images).

Source: http://sabayon.org/release/press-release-sabayon-1304

Comet to Make Close Flyby of Red Planet in October 2014

Comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will make a very close approach to Mars in October 2014.

The latest trajectory of comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) generated by the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., indicates the comet will pass within 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of Mars and there is a strong possibility that it might pass much closer. The NEO Program Office's current estimate based on observations through March 1, 2013, has it passing about 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) from the Red Planet's surface. That distance is about two-and-a-half times that of the orbit of outermost moon, Deimos.

Source and Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/comet20130305.html

Raspberry Pi at Southampton

SOURCE AND ORIGINAL: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/index.htm