Tag: NSA | Hamilton.jerry

May 3, 2014

Linux Tails Offers Safe Operating System to All

As of this week an operating system immune from NSA and similar hacking has finally come of age. A free download of Linux Tails is here.

Based on Debian, the pure, free operating system of basic programs and utilities, the secure Linux version called Tails boots from removable media, not a hard disk, unless you prefer hard disk booting. Tails has crushed a long list of bugs by funneling all data through Tor and a group of cryptography and anonymising tools. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/01/secure_os_tails_1_released/

Many users unfamiliar with Linux or Heartbleed might fail to recognize the significance of this Linux development. To HamiltonFinanceServices.com (HFS) analysts, however, the news is BIG. We absolutely do not encourage evasion of law enforcement when cops are properly doing their important jobs, although Tor has become a significant irritation to NSA and others because they have no known method of breaking through it to discover the user’s identity. So to HFS some risk applies to having a powerful operating system such as Tails. Nonetheless, for the majority of law abiding users, the attraction is clearly to avoid unlawful hacking and other snooping around innocent users’ applications. With Linux Tails as your OS, even uninformed computer amateurs should justifiably feel safe on the Internet, perhaps for the first time in history. To HFS, this development marks a major step towards strong privacy on the web. What do you think?

March 31, 2014

More NSA Treachery Discovered By Academics

NSA Worse Than Previously Thought

Just when many believe the US National Security Agency (NSA) could not reach any lower in world judgment about NSA ethics, another report came out today shedding new light on NSA treachery and double dealing. https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/30-1

Most in the cyber security field have heard already about how RSA, a well-respected pioneer of cyber security through development of encryption tech, had developed a now-useless cryptology for NSA that became the default software used by most commercial computer programs. That cryptology used software into which NSA software engineers placed a backdoor, enabling NSA to hack the majority of computer programs and related communications worldwide just a few years ago. http://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-nsa-infiltrated-rsa-security-more-deeply-thought-study-238906

Now the picture looks worse. Several professors from different universities, including from John Hopkins, Wisconsin, and Illinois, discovered additional NSA tools in the RSA program that accelerated the hacking efficiency by a factor of more than 10,000. That means NSA had no real challenge getting around all RSA security measures very rapidly to decipher all Internet traffic of those using that predominant RSA program. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-usa-security-nsa-rsa-idUSBREA2U0TY20140331

Based on HFS surveys and analysis, many today find the behavior of Edward Snowden, who disclosed and continues disclosing to the world data he illegally took from the NSA while working there as a contractor, committed unforgivable treason against his nation. At the same time, those surveyed hold the NSA equally at fault for NSA’s deceptive, abusive, illegal spying domestically and abroad. Combining the bad behavior of both Snowden and NSA, the US has lost credibility in the hearts and minds of its allies, leaving open the door to its competitors for control of the Internet.

What do you think?

March 26, 2014

Can ICANN keep control?

ICANN Foundation Foments Future Flux

NSA cyber spying fallout that pushed China and Russia proposals to take over Internet foundations now performed through the US Department of Commerce’s contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has fomented further discussion. Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) news anchor Judy Woodward interviewed present and former ICANN leaders to discuss coming changes. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/who-should-oversee-the-web/

HFS initiated this conversation in a recent article, and now attention to the subject has reached higher levels. From the New York Times discussion to the Washington Post arguments, across the US pundits have raised an alarm. This week Woodward started with a quote from former US president, Bill Clinton, who opines predictably that other governments want to gag the Internet, and quickly moved to more substantive discussions from the current and the former leaders of ICANN, Fadi Chehade and Vint Cerf, along with Randolph May, founder of a free-market-oriented think tank called the Free State Foundation. In essence, they repeated the HFS report from last week, that China, Russia, and Iran want to take control of the Internet through a UN committee, and the US resists that plan, but from a weakened position as the NSA spy scandal has unfolded and continues to unfold. ICANN itself has kept the conversation alive through its website at this link: http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-11jan14-en.htm

Numerous other sites have offered additional opinions, but the central point remains that no one knows the future of the Internet except that the US shot itself in the foot with its NSA scandal, which will probably cause the Internet to change…somehow. No one has any clear thoughts about just how to make the Internet better for everyone else.

What do you think?

March 10, 2014

Assange Skypes to the World About National Security Reporting

National Security Reporting, A New Career Choice

Listening to Julian Assange as he Skyped around the world from the Ecuadorian embassy in London Saturday, one might believe a new career choice has emerged in the field of national security reporting. http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/8/5484784/julian-assange-at-sxsw-wikileaks

The WikiLeaks founder, now fleeing Swedish charges of sexual assault, has holed up in the embassy to avoid what he maintains is a plot to extradite him to the US for prosecution because he broadcast hundreds of thousands of national security documents and refuses to name sources. http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-assange-talks-nsa-hints-more-leaks-214516768.html

For about an hour marked by sound outages, Assange described how a new refugee status has emerged as national security reporters become more significant influencers on the world scene. To Assange, the NSA has become a rogue government agency. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/08/julian-assange-wikileaks-nsa-sxsw The world’s reaction to government overreaching is the new job called ‘national security reporter.’

However, Assange warns that even now the US fails to take Edward Snowden and similar reporters seriously. He says: “We know what happens when the government is serious. Someone is fired, someone is forced to resign, someone is prosecuted, an investigation (is launched), a budget is cut. None of that has happened in the last eight months since the Edward Snowden revelations.”

Analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com (HFS) argue that to take Snowden and similar leakers seriously would raise them to a new political status due to the importance of changes being made as the result of ongoing court cases, previously report by HFS, that have arisen within the past 6 months. US security service leaders remains indignant and self-righteous, and they will probably stay that way until the US Supreme Court bites them where it hurts, say HFS analysts.

What do you think?