Tuesday, October 15, 2013

NSA backlash sparks new technology...

From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking shape, from a surge of new encrypted email programs to technology that sprinkles the Internet with red flag terms to confuse would-be snoops.

Policy makers, privacy advocates and political leaders around the world have been outraged at the near weekly disclosures from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that expose sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs.

"Until this summer, people didn't know anything about the NSA," said Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University co-director Amy Zegart. "Their own secrecy has come back to bite them."

Activists are fighting back with high-tech civil disobedience, entrepreneurs want to cash in on privacy concerns, internet users want to keep snoops out of their computers and lawmakers want to establish stricter parameters.

Some of the tactics are more effective than others. For example, Flagger, a program that adds words like "blow up" and "pressure cooker" to web addresses that users visit, is probably more of a political statement than actually confounding intelligence agents. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Brazil announces secure email to counter US spying...
  2. NSA Internet spying sparks race to create offshore havens for data privacy...
  3. Internet freedom on decline worldwide as governments tighten grip...
  4. On Internet, Brazil is beating US at its own game...
  5. Brazil looks to break from U.S.-centric Internet...
  6. Greek community creates an off-the-grid Internet...
  7. Indian government may ban Gmail for official communication...
  8. Facebook sees ‘digital suicides’ as users fear privacy breaches and...

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