Phone Hacking Tied to Terrorists

Via NY Times -

Four people in the Philippines hacked into the accounts of AT&T business customers in the United States and diverted money to a group that financed terrorist attacks across Asia, according to police officials in the Philippines.

A statement from the Philippines Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, a law enforcement agency, said three men and one woman had been arrested in raids across the capital, Manila, last week.

According to the agency, the men were working with a group called Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda and responsible for the 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people.

The group has been held responsible for several other terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia, mostly in Indonesia but including the Philippines.

If the new accusation holds up, it would point to a troubling connection between hackers and terrorist cells.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Saturday that it was working with the police in the Philippines on the investigation into the telephone hacking effort, which apparently began as early as 2009.

The suspects remotely gained access to the telephone operating systems of an unspecified number of AT&T clients and used them to call telephone numbers that passed on revenues to the suspects.

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Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is a Southeast Asian militant Islamic organization dedicated to the establishment of a Daulah Islamiyah (regional Islamic caliphate) in Southeast Asia incorporating Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines, Singapore and Brunei. JI was added to the United Nations 1267 Committee's list of terrorist organizations linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban on 25 October 2002 under UN Security Council Resolution 1267.

After the 2002 Bali bombings, the U.S. State Department designated Jemaah Islamiah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

UK Cyber Security Strategy: Protecting & Promoting the UK in a Digital World

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/The%20UK%20Cyber%20Security%20Strategy-%20web%20ver.pdf

Executive Summary

The internet is revolutionising our society by driving economic growth and giving people new ways to connect and co-operate with one another. Falling costs mean accessing the internet will become cheaper and easier, allowing more people in the UK and around the world to use it, ‘democratising’ the use of technology and feeding the flow of innovation and productivity. This will drive the expansion of cyberspace further and as it grows, so will the value of using it. Chapter 1 describes the background to the growth of the networked world and the immense social and economic benefits it is unlocking.

As with most change, increasing our reliance on cyberspace brings new opportunities but also new threats. While cyberspace fosters open markets and open societies, this very openness can also make us more vulnerable to those – criminals, hackers, foreign intelligence services – who want to harm us by compromising or damaging our critical data and systems. Chapter 2 describes these threats. The impacts are already being felt and will grow as our reliance on cyberspace grows.

The networks on which we now rely for our daily lives transcend organisational and national boundaries. Events in cyberspace can happen at immense speed, outstripping traditional responses (for example, the exploitation of cyberspace can mean crimes such as fraud can be committed remotely, and on an industrial scale). Although we have ways of managing risks in cyberspace, they do not match this complex and dynamic environment. So we need a new and transformative programme to improve our game domestically, as well as continuing to work with other countries on an international response.

Chapter 3 sets out where we want to end up – with the Government’s vision for UK cyber security in 2015.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Launched with New Curiosity Rover

Via MSNBC -

NASA has launched its next Mars rover, kicking off a long-awaited mission to investigate whether the Red Planet could ever have hosted microbial life. The car-size Curiosity rover blasted off atop its Atlas 5 rocket at 10:02 a.m. ET Saturday, streaking into a cloudy sky above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here. The huge robot's next stop is Mars, though the 354-million-mile (570-million-kilometer) journey will take eight and a half months.

Joy Crisp a deputy project scientist for the rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., called the liftoff "spectacular." "This feels great," she said as she watched the rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral.

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NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Homepage
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

Signal Acquired: Mars Science Laboratory Makes First Contact
Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:00:43 AM EST

A signal from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, including the new Curiosity rover, has been received by officials on the ground. The spacecraft is flying free and headed for Mars after separation from the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that started it on its journey to the Red Planet. Liftoff was on time at 10:02 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

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Video: MSL Launch
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=18895&media_id=122049781

Video: MSL Separation & Heading Toward Mars
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=18895&media_id=122049781

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You can even follow the Mars Curiosity Rover on Twitter - @MarsCuriosity

TEDxBrussels: Mikko H. Hypponen - Defending the Net

"Privacy is implied. Privacy is not up for discussion. This is not a question between privacy against security. It is a question of freedom against control. And while we might trust our governments, right now, right here in 2011. Any rights we give away will be given away for good. And do we trust...do we blindly trust any future government, a government we might have 50 years from now. And these are the questions that we have to worry about for the next 50 years."
-Mikko H. Hypponen

Ai Weiwei - 'Shame on Me'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,799302,00.html

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei speaks about the changes in his life since the end of his detention in June and shows himself moved and surprised by a new culture of protest in his country.

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Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) for the 2008 Olympics. As political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He has investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of so-called "tofu-skin schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Such an awesome interview by Der Spiegel.

NCIX: Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace

http://www.ncix.gov/publications/reports/fecie_all/Foreign_Economic_Collection_2011.pdf

Executive Summary

Foreign economic collection and industrial espionage against the United States represent significant and growing threats to the nation’s prosperity and security. Cyberspace—where most business activity and development of new ideas now takes place—amplifies these threats by making it possible for malicious actors, whether they are corrupted insiders or foreign intelligence services (FIS), to quickly steal and transfer massive quantities of data while remaining anonymous and hard to detect.

[...]

Pervasive Threat from Adversaries and Partners

Sensitive US economic information and technology are targeted by the intelligence services, private sector companies, academic and research institutions, and citizens of dozens of countries.

• Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage. US private sector firms and cybersecurity specialists have reported an onslaught of computer network intrusions that have originated in China, but the IC cannot confirm who was responsible.
• Russia’s intelligence services are conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from US targets.
• Some US allies and partners use their broad access to US institutions to acquire sensitive US economic and technology information, primarily through aggressive elicitation and other human intelligence (HUMINT) tactics. Some of these states have advanced cyber capabilities.

Outlook

Because the United States is a leader in the development of new technologies and a central player in global financial and trade networks, foreign attempts to collect US technological and economic information will continue at a high level and will represent a growing and persistent threat to US economic security. The nature of the cyber threat will evolve with continuing technological advances in the global information environment.

• Over the next several years, the proliferation of portable devices that connect to the Internet and other networks will continue to create new opportunities for malicious actors to conduct espionage. The trend in both commercial and government organizations toward the pooling of information processing and storage will present even greater challenges to preserving the security and integrity of sensitive information.
• The US workforce will experience a cultural shift that places greater value on access to information and less emphasis on privacy or data protection. At the same time, deepening globalization of economic activities will make national boundaries less of a deterrent to economic espionage than ever.

We judge that the governments of China and Russia will remain aggressive and capable collectors of sensitive US economic information and technologies, particularly in cyberspace.

The relative threat to sensitive US economic information and technologies from a number of countries may change in response to international economic and political developments. One or more fast-growing regional powers may judge that changes in its economic and political interests merit the risk of aggressive cyber and other espionage against US technologies and economic information.

ZeroAccess Rootkit Launched by Signed Installers

Via McAfee Labs -

Digital certificates and certificate authorities have been much in the news recently. Attacks–such as those used by Stuxnet, Duqu, and other malware–involving stolen certificates show an increasingly worrisome new security trend.

Certificate authorities have been targeted several times in the recent past with some success. There is a large chunk of known malware signed by apparently legitimate companies that appear to have authored malware, adware, and/or potentially unwanted programs. As a matter of fact, a very significant percentage of recent malware executables (as high as 5 percent) purport to be, or are, signed with some sort of certificate. Even in the case of mobile malware, signed executables have appeared because issuers have failed to see the malware in the files before approving them. This attention to certificates by malware authors seems to validate that they are indeed the “keys to the kingdom.”

A few days ago, we first saw a new attack that turned out to be variants of the infamous ZeroAccess rootkit, launched by digitally signed installers and uninstallers.

[...]

ZeroAccess is known to be very difficult to remove from system. It has a variety of techniques to fight against antivirus and security products, and can do so generically. Previously, we discussed how the rootkit can generically kill AV and security products, using user mode APC calls from kernel mode. This attack is very serious, and successful against most targets.

This version of ZeroAccess uses another neat trick to also generically target certain security products. Once ZeroAccess is loaded, it prevents the execution of several security products by mimicking a load error.

[...]

Several installers and uninstallers have been observed, with variants of ZeroAccess. Those that we are aware of can be cleaned with the free McAfee Labs tool RootkitRemover, which is available for download.

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Free ZeroAccess removal tool from McAfee Labs, RootkitRemover, available at http://vil.nai.com/images/562354_4.zip

Underworld - Born Slippy (Dubstep Remix) by Filth-Er

"Born Slippy" is a single by Underworld originally released in 1995, which has never appeared on an album by the group.

This dubstep remix is by Filth-Er, based out of Romania.
http://www.myspace.com/AlreadyInUseBy
http://soundcloud.com/filther

China's Great Firewall Tests Mysterious Scans On Encrypted Connections

Via Forbes (Andy Greenberg) -

In the cat-and-mouse game between Chinese censors and Internet users, the government seems to be testing a new mousetrap–one that may be designed to detect and block tunnels through its Great Firewall even when the data in those tunnels is aimed at a little-known computer and obscured by encryption.

In recent months, administrators of services with encrypted connections designed to allow users secure remote access say they’ve seen strange activity coming from China: When a user from within the country attempts to reach a server abroad, a string of seemingly random data hits the destination computer before he or she can connect, sometimes followed by that user’s communication being mysteriously dropped.

The anti-censorship and anonymity service Tor, for instance, has found that many of its “bridge nodes”–privately-placed servers around the world designed to connect users to the rest of Tor’s public network of traffic re-routing computers–have become inaccessible to Chinese users within hours or even minutes of being set up, according to Andrew Lewman, the project’s executive director. Users have told him that other censorship circumvention services like Ultrasurf and Freegate have seen similar problems, he says. “Someone will try to connect, then there’s a weird scan, and the bridge stops working,” says Lewman. “We see weird things all the time, but this is a semi-consistent weird thing, and it’s only coming from China.”

Lewman believes that China’s internet service providers may be testing a new system that, rather than merely block IP addresses or certain Web pages, attempts to identify censorship circumvention tools by preceding a user’s connection to an encrypted service with a probe designed to reveal something about what sort of service the user is accessing. “It’s like if I tell my wife I’m going bowling with my friends, and she calls the bowling alley ahead of time to see if that’s what I’m really doing,” says Lewman. “It’s verifying that you’re asking for what you seem to be asking for.”

But so far, Lewman says Tor’s developers haven’t determined how that probe is able to see what’s an encrypted connection to a Tor server and what’s merely a connection to an encrypted banking or ecommerce site, which in theory should both look to a snooping government like indecipherably scrambled web traffic. The Chinese government after all, wouldn’t be likely to block all encrypted connections, such as corporate VPNs, Lewman points out. “If Foxconn were disconnected from Apple, that would be big problem,” he says.

In the mean time, only a small fraction of Tor’s Chinese users are experiencing the issue, implying that it may be just a subset of Chinese broadband providers experimenting with the new tool, says Lewman.

APT: Norway's Critical Infrastructure Target of Ongoing Phishing Campaign

Via HostExploit.com -

Norwegian news agencies report that several top companies have been targeted in an ongoing phishing campaign and could be one of the largest cases of data theft in the country.

Few details have been released so far but online 'Views and News from Norway' reports that 'National security unit NSM (Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet) and police intelligence unit PST (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste) believe the goal of the computer spies is to gather information on secret contracts, industrial drawings, user names and passwords' according to their source the newspaper 'Aftenposten'.

Top executives in organizations at the heart of Norway's critical infrastructure are said to have been targeted in a long running phishing attack. Malicious programs that locate and extract senstive information are thought to have entered computer systems by tricking key employees into clicking on attachments to emails sent by the data spies in a sophisticated and ongoing campaign.

None of the companies in the attacks have been named and investigations are continuing into the latest attack that happened earlier this month.

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From the AP:

Data from Norway's oil and defense industries may have been stolen in what is feared to be one of the most extensive data espionage cases in the country's history, security officials said Thursday.

Industrial secrets from companies were stolen and "sent out digitally from the country," the Norwegian National Security Authority said, though it did not name any companies or institutions that were targeted.

At least 10 different attacks, mostly aimed at the oil, gas, energy and defense industries, were discovered in the past year, but the agency said it has to assume the number is much higher because many victims have yet to realize that their computers have been hacked.

[...]

The agency said in a statement that this type of data-theft was "cost-efficient" for foreign intelligence services and that "espionage over the Internet is cheap, provides good results and is low-risk." Veire would not elaborate, but said it was not clear who was behind the attacks.

The attacks often occurred when companies were negotiating large contracts, the agency said.

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Related blog entries...

May 23, 2011 - Targeted Attack: Norway Army Says Faced Cyber Attack After Libya Bombing
http://djtechnocrat.blogspot.com/2011/05/targeted-attack-norway-army-says-faced.html

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Annual Report 2011

http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2011/annual_report_full_11.pdf

On behalf of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, we are pleased to transmit the Commission’s 2011 Annual Report to the Congress—the ninth major Report presented to Congress by the Commission—pursuant to Public Law 106–398 (October 30, 2000), as amended by Public Law No. 109–108 (November 22, 2005). This report responds to the mandate for the Commission "to monitor, investigate, and report to Congress on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China." In this Report, the Commission reached a broad and bipartisan consensus; it approved the Report unanimously, with all 12 members voting to approve and submit it.

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The "Computer Network Exploitation" section starting on Page 182 discusses the RSA SecurID attack, Operation Shady RAT, Night Dragon, and Targeted Gmail attacks. Here is a little gem from the top of Page 183....

The perpetrators then used information about the compromised RSA security product in order to target a number of the firm’s customers, including at least three prominent entities within the U.S. defense industrial base. Those intrusions and intrusion attempts, according to some reports, also originated in China and appeared to be state sponsored.

Pentagon: Cyber Offense Part of U.S. Strategy

Via Washington Post -

The Pentagon is prepared to launch cyberattacks in response to hostile actions that threaten the government, military or U.S. economy, according to a new policy document submitted to Congress this week.

The report, obtained by The Washington Post, is the most detailed document so far from the government on its emerging cyberwarfare program, and it warns that adversaries attempting cyberattacks against the United States “would be taking a grave risk.”

[...]

The report is more explicit than the Pentagon’s cyberstrategy released in July, which focused on the importance of deterring attacks by building defenses that would “deny” adversaries the benefits of success. In the latest report, the Pentagon states directly that it “has the capability to conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our nation, allies and interests.”

When defense-based deterrence fails to stop a hostile act, the report says, the Pentagon “maintains, and is further developing, the ability to respond militarily in cyberspace and in other domains.”

James E. Cartwright, the recently retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the report “is a good start at documenting how the U.S. will both defend our interests in this vital domain and deter those who would threaten those interests.” Cartwright had publicly stated in July that a strategy dominated by defense would fail.

In May, the White House released an international cyberstrategy declaring that the United States reserves the right to use all necessary means — diplomatic, military and economic — to defend the nation against hostile acts in cyberspace. But it said that the United States will “exhaust all options prior to using force whenever we can” in response to a hostile act in cyberspace.

This week’s report was issued in response to a congressional requirement to answer key cyberwarfare policy questions by March 1, 2011. There was no explanation in the report for why it was months overdue.

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DoD Cyberspace Policy Report: A Report to Congress Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Section 934 (Nov 2011)
http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2011/0411_cyberstrategy/docs/NDAA%20Section%20934%20Report_For%20webpage.pdf

Stolen Malaysian Government Certificate Signed Malware

Via H-Online -

A governmental digital certificate has been used to sign malware. According to a report by F-Secure, the certificate was used to sign a piece of malware which has been spread through malicious PDF files, dropped after an Acrobat Reader 8 exploit had taken place. It has been signed by "anjungnet.mardi.gov.my" – mardi.gov.my is the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute. To steal a certificate capable of signing, an attacker would need not just the certificate but also a passphrase; this could have been stolen by use of a key-logger.

The Malaysian authorities told F-Secure that the certificate had been stolen "quite some time ago"; it was valid from 29 September 2009 to 29 September 2011 and has therefore now expired, removing the advantage gained by the malware in being digitally signed in the first place – unsigned applications produce a warning when the user downloads them from the web, but valid signed applications do not. However, it is still very rare to find malware signed with a key that officially belongs to a government.

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With the growth of code-signing technologies and requirements in modern operating system (e.g. Windows 7 64-bit), it is likely that the use of stolen or fraudulent certificates to sign malware will increase.

CCSS Forum - Digital Certificates Used by Malware
http://www.ccssforum.org/malware-certificates.php

Hat-tip to @diocyde for the CCSS Forum link.

APT: Anatomy of a Zero Day Attack

http://www.informationweek.com/video/security/1194518768001

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) CIO, Jerry Johnson, provides some lessons learned from the attacks on his organization in July -- a highly publicized attack on an organization that provides cyber security services for the Dept. of Energy.

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It is a long interview, but it is very insightful into these types of ongoing APT attacks.

STRATFOR Dispatch: Countering Iran in the Covert World

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111114-dispatch-countering-iran-covert-world

Director of Analysis Reva Bhalla examines how a recent chain of Iran-related events sheds light on the geopolitical environment in which Iran’s adversaries are operating.

Read more: Dispatch: Countering Iran in the Covert World | STRATFOR

McAfee Labs: Duqu - Consolidated Threat Report

http://download.nai.com/products/mcafee-avert/dil/Duqu_CTR_v1.9.pdf

McAfee Labs Consolidated Threat Reports bring together all the verified and corroborated intelligence on highly relevant and publically critical threats and events. Our researchers and engineers continually monitor the global threat landscape and provide relevant data to both our direct customers and to the public at large. We do this to assist in risk assessment and mitigation, as well as to “serve the greater good” as we cooperate and conduct research with other agencies and communities. Our Consolidated Threat Reports combine all the up-to-the-minute information from various sources (Global Threat Intelligence, blog entries, podcasts, whitepapers, presentations, and more.)

Iran Says Has Detected Duqu Computer Virus

Via MSNBC -

Iran said on Sunday it had detected the Duqu computer virus that experts say is based on Stuxnet, the so-called "cyber-weapon" discovered last year and believed to be aimed at sabotaging the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites.

The head of Iran's civil defense organization told the official IRNA news agency that computers at all main sites at risk were being checked and that Iran had developed software to combat the virus.

"We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus," Gholamreza Jalali, was quoted as saying. "The final report which says which organizations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet.

"All the organizations and centers that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled," he said.

News of Duqu surfaced in October when security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet.

While Stuxnet was aimed at crippling industrial control systems and may have destroyed some of the centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium, experts say Duqu appeared designed to gather data to make it easier to launch future cyber attacks.

[...]

Iran said in April it had been targeted by a second computer virus which it identified as "Stars." It was not immediately clear if Stars and Duqu were related but Jalali described Duqu as the third virus to hit Iran.

Tehran said Stuxnet had not inflicted serious damage before it was detected and blamed the United States and Israel for the virus which appeared to be aimed at crippling the nuclear program they say is aimed at making atomic weapons, a charge Iran denies.

The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report last week that contained what it called credible evidence pointing to military dimensions to Iran's atomic activities, fueling demands in Washington and Europe for further sanctions.

Beyond Nuclear: North Korea’s Other Weapons Threat

Via The Diplomat (Nov. 12, 2011) -

North Korea’s latent nuclear weapons program is rightfully the main point of concern for its neighbors and the international community. But far less publicized is Pyongyang’s ongoing efforts to build upon its capabilities to produce and maintain chemical and biological weapons (CBW).

North Korea’s expansion of these programs is no secret to intelligence agencies around the world, and there are a number of reports detailing sites across the country dedicated to the production of CBW. The question, though how, is has Pyongyang been able to circumvent the international CBW regime so easily?

On the question of chemical weapons, this problem is easier to understand – North Korea isn’t a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has never been subject to inspections of its chemical industry facilities or sites believed associated with its CW program. Regardless, there’s little debate about the existence of the North’s CW program, with intelligence assessments from Russia, Britain, the United States and South Korea all indicating that Pyongyang continues to produce CW stocks.

Much less clear is the scope of the CW program and its level of advancement. Most assessments concur that the North has produced all of the main chemical agents such as nerve (including VX gas), blood, blister and choking agents. There’s less certainty regarding the amount of chemical agents stockpiled by the regime, although estimates range from 1,000 to 5,000 tons. However, even if the North’s program is at the low end of estimates, its capacity is bolstered by the fact that its military has a variety of sophisticated delivery vehicles for CW attacks including missiles, artillery and airborne bombs.

While Pyongyang publicly denies the need for transparency on its CW program, its production of biological weapons is muddied and concealed by weak international non-proliferation standards. Unlike the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has robust verification standards, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is plagued by the failure of its members to agree on a universal verification mechanism that would adequately ensure that all state parties are held to account for their treaty commitments.

[...]

The CBW threat emanating from Pyongyang isn’t limited to the Korean Peninsula either. North Korea is widely known for its horizontal proliferation of WMD and related materials to autocratic regimes around the world, such as Syria and Burma. There’s also the terrifying possibility that the government may – or already has – traded chemical or biological agents and suitable delivery vehicles to terrorist groups, which could weaponize them to use in an asymmetric attack. The improved ability of intelligence agencies around the world to determine weapons forensics would in theory deter such an illicit transfer, but it can’t be guaranteed – especially with a desperate leadership starved of cash.

[...]

Seoul’s new biodefense strategy has three central prongs. The first relies on detection, and has been supported by the government’s planned implementation of scanning technology at ports of entry that will be able to detect ten separate disease threats. The second pillar focuses on deterrence, which is based on South Korea’s continued investment in its hard power resources, such as medium and long range surface-to-air missiles. The final ingredient is the much needed investment in protecting South Koreans in the event of a biological attack through the development and stockpiling of vaccines.

South Korea’s CBW policy seems to be focused primarily on containment, which is of course entirely rational. However, it’s lacking a driver that can morph the North’s calculus away from producing and maintaining CBW. Beginning a serious dialogue on CBW with North Korea is necessary, and could facilitate an opening for a smoother resumption to the stalled Six Party Talks on the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

Still, Seoul must be cautious – Kim Jong-il’s regime has displayed its insincerity and belligerence on several previous occasions when such talks resumed. Attempting to include CBW in the Six Party Talks would be counterproductive and would give Pyongyang more avenues to stall and launch salvos against Korea and the United States. Instead, South Korea should dangle the CBW carrot to its neighbor and hope for dialogue, while at the same time maintaining its three-pronged strategy to keep the pressure on.

Report: FTC Nears Deal with Facebook For Opt-In Privacy Changes

Via Threstpost.com -

The deal will settle an FTC case alleging privacy violations on the social network by forcing users to opt in to any changes to default privacy settings, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The FTC inquiry dates back more than two years, and followed changes to the default privacy settings that pushed some formerly private user information into the public domain, the Wall Street Journal reported. Despite efforts to quell controversy over its privacy policies since then, the company has repeatedly ired consumer advocates and some members of Congress since then. In September, Facebook pushed out changes to its 800 million members that made it easier to share information with their Facebook network and made it easier for applications that run on the platform to track and share users activities, as well.

Following the change, users noticed that the company was collecting data not only when users were logged on, but also when they were visiting other sites online, by way of a Facebook plug-in that continued to operate even when there was no active Facebook session. Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), co-Chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, sent a letter in September to the FTC to investigate the company's use of tracking cookies.

The exact terms of the rumored settlement aren't known, but reports suggest it would go a long way towards ending those kinds of practices. For one, Facebook would submit to independent privacy audits for 20 years settlement and to get user consent before making retroactive policy changes to its privacy. The agreement will not require users to expressly agree to all changes and feature additions on the site.

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Opt-in = good (for changes that might negatively impact your privacy level on FB).
Opt-in = bad (for changes that would improve user security, e.g. Default SSL Enabling).

Music: The Troublemakers - Get Misunderstood

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Quality lounge from Supperclub presents Vol. 3 - La Salle Neige.