It's not domestic spying if the servers are located out of the country, right?

Despite the fact that the NSA has far-reaching legal authority to monitor Internet traffic and has never lost a court case where it wanted data that someone else didn't want it to have, the Snowden leak keeps unveiling program after program designed to circumvent the law and give the NSA even greater access to information that many of us would have consider private.

On display today is the NSA program codenamed Muscular, by which is hacked into the front end servers of Google, Yahoo, and other data giants to get easier access to the unencrypted data passing point to point within the companies' data network. Once they created the hack, they captured vast amounts of data, defending their practice by altering the definition of surveillance. But the claim that it's only surveillance if you look at the data after you steal it is weak at best, and when taken in context with other documents whereby human analysts complain about the relative ineffectiveness of the program (you can't have a complaint about a program without someone looking at the data!), it seems fairly evident that the NSA is once again overreaching.

The consequences of NSA policy is starting to impact how the world (both our allies and enemies) view the US, and it's starting to have real-world economic impacts. By way of example, (soured from Extremetech.com) Multiple US providers of encrypted email services have shut down rather than be forced to reveal their users. In the case of Lavabit, the government has argued that forcing the company to reveal the private email encryption keys for some 400,000 customers was not an undue burden in its quest to seize Edward Snowden’s email account. The fact that 399,999 of the people in question had done nothing wrong and were not under any sort of surveillance order was besides the point.

Western Digital has announced the commercial availability of the world’s first hermetically sealed, helium-filled hard drive, the Ultrastar He6 — a 6-terabyte hard drive that, along with being the first helium-filled drive, just happens to be the highest-capacity conventional storage disk in the world.

In science's ongoing quest to have humanity enslaved or destroyed by sentient machines, a team from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is working to build a transistor that behaves like a neuron.

Such technology could greatly increase the speed at which computations can occur, as well as improve a machines ability to learn and remember. Hopefully it won't increase the incidence of Early Onset Artificial Alzheimer's.

For those of you calling in over the last few days asking if the Adobe emails you're receiving are legitimate... they are. Adobe has announced news of a security breach and has locked accounts that have potentially been compromised until the passwords are reset.

If you have an Adobe account, even if you have not received an email from them, it would be best to log in and change your password.

For those of you who ignored the emails because you thought they were spam... you didn't do anything wrong. I always urge customers to be suspicious of emails like that, even when they turn out to be legitimate. In the event you receive a similar notice in the future (from Adobe, a bank, Amazon, etc.), I advise customers to ignore the links in the email, go to the site in question, and look for information about whatever was presented in the email. Even if you just go to the potentially affected account and change your password without confirming the threat, you've done nothing but protect yourself. Just be wary of links in emails. If you're going to use them, make sure they are taking you to the proper places.

Thanks to Techdirt for pointing me to an article in Der Spiegel, detailing more of the NSA's programs for hacking into and using data from smartphones (but definitely not our smartphones. Nope. Only the smartphones of the really really bad guys!)

Among some of the more revealing bits from the article are the comments by former NSA head Michael Hayden, where he refers to each of the [at that time] 400,000 iphone apps as "400,000 possibilities for attacks" and the presentation's display of photos purportedly taken from hacked smartphones, including one of "a former senior government official of a foreign country who, according to the NSA, is relaxing on his couch in front of a TV set and taking pictures of himself -- with his iPhone. To protect the person's privacy, SPIEGEL has chosen not to reveal his name or any other details."

While I suppose on some level its comforting to know that our government has the capability to use this technology to track and monitor America's "enemies", I just can't bring myself to believe that our government officials will use this technology responsibly, or just to spy on actual and current enemies of our nation. In fact, I have a hard time believing that the NSA agents will consistently use this technology to spy on enemy opera

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From Techdirt.com:

The chief judge of FISC, Reggie Walton, who has reacted angrily in the past to the claims of FISC being a "rubber stamp", has now admitted that the FISC really can't check on what the NSA is doing and relies on what they tell him to make sure that they're not breaking the law.

“The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.”

Some of the assumptions at the heart of cryptographic theory may be wrong, which could have significant ramifications on how secure our encrypted data actually is. Does that mean your data isn't safe? Not necessarily. But it does mean that the formerly "impossible to break" encryption we use may now be just "very difficult to break".

Given that the alternative is no encryption, and given that the government (and others) already have legal access to a fair amount of our cloud-based data, this may not be the most pressing privacy concern out there. But if information theory and encryption is something that interests you, follow the previous link to read the full article from MIT, or jump straight to the scientific paper on the matter. NOTE: Follow the second link may set off your Nerd Alert alarms.

I suspect few of you knew of the existence of a Smart Toilet. The Japanese SATIS is "a cutting-edge toilet with advanced electronics technology." Owners can expect their throne to open automatically upon arrival, play music while you "work", then flush and close the lid based on your movement. The SATIS deodorizes automatically, has dedicated front and rear cleansing nozzles, and the bidet also features a "massage feature" for a truly unique potty experience.

Unfortunately, due to a Bluetooth vulnerability, the SATIS can be hacked, and attackers could unexpectedly open and close the lid, flush the toilet constantly, turn the music or lights on or off at will, or even activate the bidet jets at what may prove to be an inopportune time.

A hacked SATIS could significantly run up an owner's electric and water bills, but I would think that if you can pay over $4000 for a toilet, you can afford the extra water.

Ever wonder how to make your "alone time" a little more special? Watch this promotional SATIS video to see what you never knew you were missing!

From Extremetech:

Providing us with a delightful glimpse of the future of humanity and bionic implants, Second Sight — the developer of the first bionic eye to receive FDA approval in the US — is currently working on a firmware upgrade that gives users of the Argus II bionic eye better resolution, focus, and image zooming. The software update even provides users with color recognition, even though the original version of the device only provides black and white vision.