Friday, August 30, 2013

FutureWatch: On the Road to The Corporate State

Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Surveillance

via Patrick Gray, wired.com...
On the very day the media dropped detailed documents on the NSA’s X-Keyscore collection program, the Facebook engineering team published a blog post stating that all access to Facebook via apps and web browsers was now SSL encrypted. Given X-Keyscore was a program primarily designed to intercept unencrypted internet traffic, you could be forgiven for interpreting Facebook’s post as a middle finger pointed in NSA’s direction...

You don't need a Weatherman to know...
You want us to execute that warrant for you? Ok, sure, but the user will get a nice big popup warning telling them that their messages are likely being intercepted!

There are new interception hurdles everywhere you look. Even plain old SSL encryption is becoming more difficult to snoop on. Previously, governments could rely on complicit or compromised certificate authorities to provide them with the means to intercept encrypted traffic. Thanks to the Iranian government’s overly enthusiastic use of this technique, Google made changes to the Chrome browser to neuter the practice. Similar updates are expected soon in Internet Explorer. There goes another interception technique for law enforcement!

And it’s only going to get worse for the poor ole G-Men. Technology companies are enabling security features that make certain types of government surveillance extremely difficult, and it’s a trend that’s set to continue. That’s why the U.S. government has long wanted laws that force tech companies to make their products wiretap friendly. (more)


"Knowledge is power." Whoever holds the knowledge, holds the power. (sing-a-long)