Federal law enforcement agencies are monitoring more email and social media communications than ever before, according to Justice Department documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Attorney General Eric Holder (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Federal law enforcement agencies have ramped up their monitoring of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, without obtaining search warrants, newly released documents show.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, obtained documents from the Justice Department under a Freedom of Information Act request detailing the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance techniques used by federal agencies. The documents show a marked increase in monitoring social media beginning in 2009.
Request to intercept social media communications jumped 80 percent from 2010 and 2011.
The Megaupload.com domain has been replaced with a warning from the US Department of Justice, the FBI and the US Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center that the website has been seized and shut down. (Screengrab/Screengrab)
Megaupload, one of the world’s largest websites and the most-visited file-sharing site in internet history, may be set to return after it’s shutdown and the arrest of its founder last January.
“Quick update on the new Mega: Code 90% done. Servers on the way. Lawyers, Partners & Investors ready. Be patient. It's comin,” Tweeted the owner and founder of the site, Kim Dotcom, hinting that the well-loved and sorely missed site may be slated for a return.
Dotcom has been alluding to the return of the site for some time via Twitter.
“SOPA is dead. PIPA is dead. ACTA is dead. MEGA will return. Bigger. Better. Faster. Free of charge & shielded from attacks. Evolution!” Dotcom said in July.
The American flag stands at half-staff at the U.S. Capitol September 12, 2012 in Washington, DC. The flag was lowered for U.S. ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other embassy employees who were killed when the embassy in Benghazi was attacked by a mob potentially angered by an American-made video mocking Islam's founding prophet. (Mark Wilson/AFP/Getty Images)
Technology corporations and internet innovators have joined together to establish the internet’s first official special interest group – The Internet Association.
Just a few months after circling the digital wagons in defense against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), companies like Google, eBay, Faebook and Amazon will begin lobbying Capitol Hill. While the internet sometimes behaves collectively as a special interest group, using both technical expertise and grassroots protest, The Internet Association is the first attempt to lobby Washington lawmakers in an official capacity.
The 14 companies involved with the association will support a platform of protecting internet freedom, empowering individual internet users and fostering innovation online. Matters of privacy and piracy will also take center stage in the association’s policy platform, looking to maintain the internet’s decentralized and pluralistic nature.
The spat between Japan and China over the Senkaku islands has now gone too far. It has led to the cancellation of the Intel Extreme Masters gaming tournament.
Anti-Japan protesters burn a Japanese national flag during a protest over the Diaoyu islands issue, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan, in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on September 18, 2012. Thousands of anti-Japan protesters rallied across China over a territorial row on a key historical anniversary, as Japanese firms including car giant Toyota shut or scaled back production in across the country. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)
The spat between Japan and China over the Senkaku islands, known in China as the Diaoyu islands, has now gone too far.
The intensifying conflict has now forced the cancellation of the Intel Extreme Masters gaming tournament scheduled to be held later this month in Guangzhou, China.
The Intel Extreme Masters tournament was set to take place during the Anime Comics and Game Show, anime being the globally popular Japanese style of sequential art and animation. Anti-Japanese protests, however, broke out over the weekend in response to Japanese territorial claims to the small group of islands.
“We are terribly sorry to disappoint esports fans that were expecting to enjoy the event, especially all Chinese esports fans. Unfortunately, the circumstances that forced the cancellation upon us were entirely beyond our control, though we understand and respect the decisions made by the Anime Comics and Games organizers,” said Michal Bilcharz, CEO of the Electronic Sports League, a Germany-based professional gaming organization behind the Intel Extreme Masters Cup.
In what appears to be a law enforcement raid on his residence, former prominent Anonymous member Barrett Brown was arrested in Dallas Wednesday night.
Update (5:55 PM): Barrett Brown has been charged with threatening a federal officer and is being held without bail according to a close friend in contact with his attorney and family.
Update (1:08 PM): In retaliation for Brown's arrest, hackers have released credit card information belonging to 13 US government employees along with phone numbers and addresses. The government employees targeted are associated with email addresses from the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, US Navy, US Air Force and US Army.
"Lulz. Barrett Brown, our controversial hated/loved friend (doesnt matter what kind of shits he does, he's still one of us) seems to have been v&'d...again. XD (you can look forward and find that splendid video of him being raided at mashable or youtube.) hhahahaha. then try to come and convince us that FBI is not mad as hell at us," read a pastebin post tweeted by @AnonymousIRC.
Brown has been moved to federal court and is scheduled for an arraignment later this afternoon.
Law enforcement officers arrested Barrett Brown late Wednesday night in a raid on his residence in Dallas, Texas.
Brown is the founder of Project PM and has worked closely with the Anonymous hacker collective on several past operations. The raid on his residence was partially documented by his webcam that was active in a video chat when law enforcement officials entered the room.
In the video, screaming and other loud noises are heard before a woman that was sitting next to Brown covered the webcam, blacking out the feed of the room.
Enterprising Chinese hackers have begun hacking new Guild Wars 2 accounts in an impressive online heist just two weeks after the game's official launch.
A visitor plays the computer game 'World of Warcraft' at the world's biggest high-tech fair, the CeBIT on March 4, 2010 in the northern German city of Hanover. Some 4,157 companies from 68 countries are displaying their latest gadgets at the fair taking place from March 2 to 6, 2010. (Nigel Treblin/AFP/Getty Images)
More than 11,000 Guild Wars 2 accounts have been hacked by China-based password crackers in what appears to be a scramble to steal new players' accounts so they can be put up for sale.
Just like in World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 accounts are valuable because hackers can sell virtual items in the game for real-world cash.
Makes of Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, have begun sending out email alerts whenever an attempt is made to log into a players account in an attempt to curtail the enormous heist.
“I just checked my email to find my inbox spammed with messages from ArenaNet asking me to authorize login attempts… I haven’t read every single message but it looks like everyone was from a different city and IP address, all in China,” wrote one poster on the official Guild Wars 2 forum, echoing the sentiments of hundreds of other posters.
Attendees play video games at Microsoft's Xbox 360 display at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 10, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs through January 13 and is expected to feature 2,700 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 140,000 attendees. (David Becker/AFP/Getty Images)
DreamHack, Europe’s premier esports organization, is inviting professional gaming figureheads from around the world to discuss the future of professional gaming.
In the first ever global esports congress, industry leaders will meet in Valencia to hash out the next steps in the industry’s growth. Esports has yet to become a household name, but with the aid of live internet streaming, fans and leaders are coming together in an attempt to make professional gaming a breakfast table topic of conversation.
“Esports has arrived as a major force in the video game and entertainment industries,” said Kevin Lin, COO of Twitch, one of the world’s largest live streaming web platforms.
A man wearing an Anonymous mask joins demonstors protesting against the world financial system during a march on November 12, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. Inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests in the USA, similar protests have been taking place across Germany, especially in Berlin and Frankfurt, for weeks. (Sean Gallup/AFP/Getty Images)
Anonymous is targeting the New York Times for the “failure of the press” to give adequate coverage to Trapwire, what some say is a global system of surveillance run by the US government.
In Operation NYT (#OpNYT), personal correspondence between New York Times staff and Barrett Brown was released to the public. Brown is the founder of Project PM and an individual that has worked alongside Anonymous on several operations,.
“Incidentally, the NYT was offered the first look at the e-mails which produced that and other scandals, but declined, and the e-mail evidence of this and other incompetence will be provided to all through other press channels within the next 48 hours, or else via the usual Anonymous venues,” wrote Brown in a press release on Pastebin.
British teenager Jake Davis was arrested in July 2011 on suspicion of hacking as a member of the LulzSec collective. He was reportedly one of several LulzSec members to be charged in New York on March 6, 2012. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)
The FBI is continuing to track down and arrest former members of the infamous LulzSec hacker collective.
A Lebanese boy plays the computer game 'Special Force 2', inspired by last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, in a southern suburb of Beirut 23 August 2007. The computer game puts players in the role of a Hezbollah fighter on the frontline of war with Israel, simulating raids into Israel to capture soldiers, battling tank movements in the valleys of south Lebanon and launching Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns. (Anwar Amro/AFP/Getty Images)
Iranian gamers will be forced to do without Blizzard games, including World of Warcraft, as the company begins to tighten up their compliance with US sanctions on Iran.
Several Iranian players found themselves unable to log into World of Warcraft and began posting on Blizzards official forums inquiring about the problems. Many of them stated that after last week’s server maintenance, they were having connection issues with the game.
Players began speculating as to the issues while many blamed the Iranian government for the block. Later in the thread, a Blizzard employee made a post clarifying what was happening in Iran.
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