Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

Consequently I wouldn't bet my life on anything really being secure against them - the government. I personally believe they can crack anything, but they might not even have to if Microsoft or others just handed over the keys to the front door and the back door. Therefore you can put me down into the category of 'people can keep no secrets from the government, only from each other'. This is not to say we should put stuff in the clear! Making strong passwords will thwart most people and companies. So for cloud storage using combinations of several encryptions can approach impossibility for snooping by anyone ( probably even Microsoft ) except the government. This is IMHO naturally.

One way to approach this is to treat the situation like you would against a common criminal: no home alarm or security system, no matter how good it is, will stop a burglar who's determined to get into your home, but in most cases it will persuade a burglar looking to score to go find a softer target. In the case of official snoops, as you point out they can probably throw tons of highly advanced processors at a single file or hard drive and crack it a lot faster than anybody thinks is possible. But it would take some significant portion of their resources to deal with a single target that way. If a million, ten million, a hundred million users harden their PC security, they simply won't have enough resources to deal with everybody's Skype calls and e-mail attachments.

Naturally, we don't need to help matters by putting an Xbox One in the family room...

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

Nor using the cloud...

[JorgeA]

And now for another Windows 8 annoyance, courtesy of Microsoft. The purchaser of a new computer that came with a free trial of Norton Internet Security could not get the Norton Toolbar to show up on his desktop IE10. In reply, a Symantec (Norton) employee reports that

Did you buy Windows8 with NIS Pre installed? If yes, Toolbar will not be displayed in IE10, but toolbar functionality will work as it should.

Microsoft request us to keep Norton toolbar in hidden mode on their browser(IE10).

What reason could there possibly be for this request?!

As an aside, I wonder if the same applies to other security suites.

--JorgeA

Edited June 10, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Nor using the cloud...

Amen to that!!

If the cloud data doesn't exist, it can't be stolen.

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

Did you buy Windows8 with NIS Pre installed? If yes, Toolbar will not be displayed in IE10, but toolbar functionality will work as it should.

Microsoft request us to keep Norton toolbar in hidden mode on their browser(IE10).

What reason could there possibly be for this request?!

It's hard to tell. Then again, whatever is hidden, can always be unveiled. Patience and a debugger go a real long way, and there are far too many people annoyed with every new twist of the current MS products, to take much time before someone comes out with a "Toolbar Revealer" or the like. I bet you won't have to wait long for it.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Important Update to the big news of the past few days ...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' ( UK Guardian 2013-06-08 )

NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Identified, and Interviewed ( Maximum PC 2013-06-09 )

I am really uncomfortable mentioning the bloke's name, but he did self-identify on the record. I suppose it was inevitable. This is one person's shoes I would not want to be in right now.

Now get ready for these two, because they are gonna be real hard to believe ...

Through a glass starkly: PRISM and BLARNEY are good things ( Ken Hess ZDNet 2013-06-07 )

The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism ( Ed Bott ZDNet 2013-06-08 )

Unabashedly cheering for the complete destruction of any semblance of privacy for the citizenry. The first article by Ken Hess deals with the government vacuuming up and analyzing all this raw data, and the author is completely rationalizing and cheerleading every single action. No, I am not kidding. Aside from a handful of Congressman and the President, no-one outside of the spook community has drank this much kool-aid. The comments make for a great read because the hapless author spends a lot of time responding to incredulous readers.

The 2nd article is penned by the infamous Ed Bott, and his focus is once again on ... wait for it ... exonerating Microsoft ( and allegedly the other members of the gang of nine ) as usual. Specifically he engages in the most extreme form of OCD by obsessing over edits made to the Washington Post article, changes that in his mind let his beloved Microsoft ( and allegedly the other members of the gang of nine ) completely off the hook. I've seen this movie before, it was called Vista. Back when Microsoft was exposed facilitating DRM into the operating system ( which approximated the hardware DRM already cooked into the firmware of consumer electronics like DVD players ) he was the point man shamelessly defending Microsoft and demonizing Peter Gutmann. This piece is exactly like a flashback to his embarrassing 6+ year old Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 1). The comments are almost interchangeable.

And now for something completely different ...

Ricin Suspect Was Tracked Via Mail Scanners ( The Smoking Gun 2013-06-07 )

This pertains to the crazy threatening letters recently sent to some famous people. But there is a very important low-tech tie-in to the spying stories. The perp has been caught and the methods used help to illustrate the extent of government spying, or more specifically, the enormous raw data collection that is underway ...

JUNE 7--A high-tech computer system that captures images of “every mail piece that is processed” by the United State Postal Service was critical in helping federal agents track the Texas woman arrested today for allegedly sending ricin-tainted letters to ...

[...]

According to FBI Agent James Spiropoulos, investigators accessed a Postal Service computer system that “incorporates a Mail Isolation Control and Tracking (MICT) program which photographs and captures an image of every mail piece that is processed.” Agents were able to obtain front and back images of about 20 mail pieces that had been processed “immediately before the mail piece addressed to ...

Furthermore, the perp is apparently a D-List hollywood actress that appeared in among other things "The Walking Dead" as an anonymous zombie. But that is really beside the point. We now know that all comm is being vacuumed up and analyzed, all mail is photographed, there are eyes in the sky, and Lord knows what else. It's a Brave New World!

EDIT: typo

Edited June 10, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Very interesting story that got lost in the vortex of spying news. I first saw this mentioned at TechBroil, I suspect Formfiller deserves the credit for finding it.

Redditor claims MS employees monitoring Reddit; making positive posts about the Xbox1 ( NeoGAF 2013-06-07 )

Microsoft Contractors Are Manipulating Comments About Xbox One On Reddit, Says Redditor ( Business Insider 2013-06-07 )

Microsoft "Up-Voting" Positive Comments on Reddit? ( Tom's Hardware 2013-06-07 )

A first-hand account of astroturfing right inside Microsoft's Redmond campus ...

We had a pretty large meeting this week at one of the offices off 31st and, because this was the first time we had visited the Microsoft complex, we got a tour of some of the buildings. It's a quite amazing place. We won't the only visitors either; there were contractors from quite a number of other firms visiting, and presumably meeting to discuss projects related to our own.

We had a semi-formal meeting in one of the larger meeting rooms, followed by lunch and some more touring. In some of the buildings they have offices for a whole range of different divisions all mixed together (e.g. I saw Skype offices, Windows Phone offices and more all in just one building). At one point we visited one of the Xbox offices, and our guide went off to find a particular manager for us to meet. He was gone for a while, so we were left hanging in the middle of a fairly hectic office for several minutes.

[...]

His coworker went back to his own computer, and he continued Redditing while we waited. He must've really been hyped up on caffeine or something, because his typing was like a machine gun and he was switching tabs like crazy (or maybe that's just because Microsoft hires the 'hacker' type of guys?) Anyway I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own.

Naturally Microsoft denies this ...

Microsoft denies allegation it hired contractors to post positive Xbox One comments on social networks [update] ( NeoWin 2013-06-08 )

However ... The fact that they noticed this story in less than 24 hours, and responded to it kind of proves that the story is true. If you read through the Reddit thread you will see that the posters went after the Softies, forcing them to respond to accusations of astroturfing. Naturally this would be noticed in Redmond where the astroturfing originated. Why else would they bother responding to some obscure "conspiracy-theory" in some random forum? And contrast that to the countless forum discussions occurring worldwide over Windows 8 and other controversies that they have no official response too. Case closed!

[Formfiller]

Very interesting story that got lost in the vortex of spying news. I first saw this mentioned at TechBroil, I suspect Formfiller deserves the credit for finding it.

Nope, that wasn't me.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Formfiller

[JorgeA]

In light of the recent revelations of official data theft, check this out:

Ixquick and its sister search engine StartPage have in their 14-year history never provided a single byte of user data to the US government, or any other government or agency. Not under PRISM, nor under any other program in the US, nor under any program anywhere in the world. We are not like Yahoo, Facebook, Google, Apple, Skype, or the other US companies who got caught up in the web of PRISM surveillance.

Here's how we are different:

• Our company is based in The Netherlands, Europe. We do not fall under US jurisdiction, so we are not subject to US regulations, warrants, or court orders. That means we can't be forced to participate in programs like PRISM, nor do we have to comply with FISA court orders, PATRIOT Act requests, FBI data demands, or warrants and subpoenas issued by US judges.
  
• What's more, Ixquick does not store any user data, so government agencies have no incentive to ask us for it to begin with. We do not record the IP addresses of our users, and we don.t use tracking cookies, so there is literally no data about you on our servers to access. Since we don't even know who our customers are, we can't share anything with Big Brother. In fact, we've never gotten even a single request in the fourteen years we've been in business.
  
• Ixquick uses encryption (HTTPS) by default. Encryption prevents snooping. Your searches are encrypted, so others can't "tap" the Internet connection to snoop what you're searching for. This combination of not storing data together with using strong encryption for the connections is key in protecting your Privacy.
  

[emphasis in original]

Ixquick has a nice feature where you can choose to connect to the pages returned in your search results via a proxy server.

Beyond this, the Ixquick/StartPage folks are putting together what they describe as "the world's most private e-mail" service, which they are calling StartMail.

--JorgeA

Edited June 10, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Glad to see I got my sponsor's badge back. Thanks, @dencorso! And attachments are working again! Finally, I get to upload the following clipping from last week's ad for my favorite office-supplies retailer. I never thought I would get to see this advertised there again:

--JorgeA

Edited June 10, 2013 by JorgeA

[vinifera]

except that ixquick puts ads on 1st page which are even worse than that of google

[JorgeA]

except that ixquick puts ads on 1st page which are even worse than that of google

I just ran a test of that to see what you were saying.

In Google it's almost impossible to tell where the ads end and the search results begin. In Ixquick, there is a faint but clear blue background stripe behind the ads.

Still, I don't begrudge them that. They've got to support the service somehow, no?

Here's a description from their sister website, Startpage, which offers anonymous Google search results (click on "Details" to the right of the search term box):

Startpage offers you Web search results from Google in complete privacy!

When you search with Startpage, we remove all identifying information from your query and submit it anonymously to Google ourselves. We get the results and return them to you in total privacy.

Your IP address is never recorded, your visit is not logged, and no tracking cookies are placed on your browser. When it comes to protecting your privacy, Startpage runs the tightest ship on the Internet. Our outstanding privacy policy and thoughtful engineering give you great search results in total anonymity. Here are some of our key features:

•Free proxy surfing available.

•Praised by privacy experts worldwide.

•Fourteen-year company track record.

•Third-party certified.

•No IP address recorded.

•No record is made of your searches.

•No identifying or tracking cookies used.

•Connection using powerful SSL encryption.

To learn more, check out our privacy page and read our privacy policy. We're confident you'll like what you see.

The only other search service I've come across that offers comparable privacy protections is DuckDuckGo, but it too gives "sponsored links" at the top of the search results. If there are even better search engines, let me know!

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

Sony just Sega Saturn'd the Xbox One.

[JorgeA]

Sony just Sega Saturn'd the Xbox One.

In English, please?

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Why Metadata Matters

One of the standard nonchalant responses to this kind of revelation is that "I've got nothing to hide, I'm not doing anything wrong." Not so fast, pal: the ability to know, not only people's whereabouts but also the intimate details of their lives, is a real threat to the democratic system, as it provides a strategic advantage to political factions that are fanatical enough ("the ends justifies the means") to use this information.

Imagine that the executive branch, which is controlled by a given political party, can now follow the leaders of the opposition party and keep track of who's sending money where, and who's wooing whom, where, when -- possibly even with access to the contents of what they're saying. Now the president and his assistants can take steps to quickly respond to (and maybe even pre-empt) their opponents' moves. The opposition may never know what hit them. For a simple example, imagine if the British king's men had been able to know, in real time, what the American revolutionaries were telling each other in their correspondence as the independence movement was put together; or that they knew the patriots were all headed for a meeting in Philadelphia; or even that they knew what the delegates said to each other at the sessions of the Continental Congress.

Add to this the increased potential to neutralize actual or possible opponents by the use of blackmail, via simple threats to reveal embarrassing private information unless they cease and desist. The potential for harm to public debate and the democratic process is enormous.

The "cure" may be worse than the disease.

--JorgeA

Edited June 11, 2013 by JorgeA