In The News

End of Silk Road as FBI Shuts Down Illicit Website

Stuart Pfeifer, Shan Li, Walter Hamilton October 7, 2013
Since the days of the Roman Empire, traders traveled a network of routes winding from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea, known as the Silk Road. A young entrepreneur relied on the name in launching an internet site in 2011 that peddled illegal drugs, and other products and services. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation closed the site and arrested Ross William Ulbricht. The Los Angeles...

Sweden's NSA Spy Links “Deeply Troubling”

David Landes October 3, 2013
The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament continues to hold hearings on electronic mass surveillance of European citizens. During the hearing a journalist suggested that “Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) provided the United States National Security Agency (NSA) access to the Baltic underwater cables,” reports...

China Intensifies Internet Crackdown

Jamil Anderlini September 16, 2013
The hopes of political reform raised after the Chinese Communist Party elected Xi Jinping last year have been dashed amidst an intensifying crackdown on the internet. An article in an influential party journal described online criticism of the party and government as “defamation.” At the same time an influential internet personality, Charles Xue , who boasted 12 million followers on China’s...

Russia Issues International Travel Advisory to Its Hackers

Kevin Poulsen September 10, 2013
US-Russian relations are strained over revelations about US surveillance programs and Russia’s decision to provide temporary asylum to a former NSA contract worker who exposed details on US electronic spying capabilities. Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a public notice advising citizens against travel abroad, especially to countries with extradition agreements with the United States, reports...

UK’s Secret Mideast Internet Surveillance Base Revealed

Duncan Campbell , Oliver Wright, James Cusick, Kim Sengupta September 2, 2013
Documents suggest that Great Britain operates a secret station in the Middle East to intercept emails, phone calls and web traffic, shared with the US National Security Agency. “All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage ‘buffers’ and then sifted for data of special interest,” reports the Independent. Telecom and tech firms have...

Philippines Web Activists Show Power of Internet Campaigns

James Hookway, Joesphine Cuneta August 26, 2013
An internet campaign in the Philippines has shamed politicians on special-interest spending that directs funding to projects in specific districts. The president has taken steps to end legislative discretionary-spending budgets after an internet campaign blasted phony and unnecessary projects listed in the Priority Development Assistance Fund, reports the Wall Street Journal: “Philippine...

How to Keep the NSA Out of Your Computer

Clive Thompson August 21, 2013
Creating a regional “mesh” online connection, avoiding the internet, began as a cost-cutting move in rural areas of Spain, Greece and Africa to avoid costly connection fees. But activists in countries as diverse as Syria and the United States now create exclusive mesh networking systems as a way to avoid surveillance systems. “Scores of communities worldwide have been building these roll-your-own...