Encryption

BitTorrent’s Encrypted P2P Chat Service Is Now Live

Announced a year ago, BitTorrent’s charmingly-named Bleep P2P chat app is finally live, for all your secretive anti-governmental murmurings. Bleep has been out as a pre-release alpha version for nearly a year now, but with the public launch, you can now chat from Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. It works much like any other…

Tech News Chris Mills May 12

We’re Closer to an Encrypted Internet than You Think

Two thirds of all North American Internet traffic could be encrypted by 2016. No, it’s not because of privacy activists. It’s actually because of Netflix. This is according to a new report from Sandvine, a vendor that provides services to network operators. Sandvine studied traffic on one of its client networks, which it declined to…

Privacy & Security Kiona Smith-Strickland May 6

Today in Congress, We Heard That Encryption is Enabling Upskirt Photos

Government debate over encryption has veered into fully stupid territory. Expert testimony at a Congressional hearing on encryption blamed Apple and Google’s privacy systems for allowing perverts to get away with secretly photographing vaginas and posting the pictures online. When Apple and Google debuted bulked-up encryption for websites last year, the FBI complained that this…

Tech News Kate Knibbs Apr 29

Online Extortionists Are Using Encryption as a Ransom Weapon

Most of the time we discuss encryption as a way to protect ourselves online , but an increasingly popular form of digital attack uses it as an extortion tool. Criminals are stealing personal files, encrypting them, and hold them hostage until their targets pay for the decryption key. A report from security firm Symantec details…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs Apr 14

The FBI Would Like Us All to Unencrypt Our Phones

When Apple decided to encrypt its iPhones by default, the move was hailed as a major step forward for security. Except, of course, by the FBI, which is now saying that such encryption should be outlawed. For the safety of Americans, of course. This past week, FBI director Jim Comey came before the House Appropriations…

Tech News Maddie Stone Mar 29

5 Unsettling Works of Encryption Art

Encryption is the process of encoding a message, and today we have incredibly sophisticated software and algorithms that make our encrypted messages almost impossible to decode. But how does it work? These art projects answer that question by exploring how encryption has become part of daily lives. Once the domain of spies and engineers, encryption…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Mar 19

Most Americans Aren’t Protecting Themselves Against Surveillance

As we inch up on the two-year anniversary of the Snowden leaks, it’s important to think about how the Earth-shattering revelations about America’s intelligence-gathering have affected Americans. We’re all using Tor and DuckDuckGo and PGP and protecting ourselves against surveillance now, right? LOL, no. Not even close actually. A new Pew study reveals that the…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Mar 16

Hillary Clinton Didn’t Encrypt Her Secretary of State Emails For Months

New details have emerged about exactly how Hillary Clinton secured the homebrew private email servers she used as Secretary of State. The punchline? Clinton didn’t encrypt her emails or use a certificate for her first three months running the State Department. While the future presidential candidate was dodging reporters’ questions and complaining about the inconvenience…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes Mar 12

That Decades-Old FREAK Security Flaw Affects Every Version of Windows

A few days ago, computer scientists revealed a wide-spread security exploit called FREAK. At first it was thought to be a vulnerability confined to Android devices and Macs, but it turns out that it affects Windows machines too. Essentially FREAK makes use of the United States 90’s government policies—which called for the inclusion of weak…

Privacy & Security Eric Limer Mar 6

Android 5.0 Devices Aren’t Encrypted By Default—Despite Google Promises

When Android 5.0 Lollipop launched, Google proudly claimed that full-disk encryption was a standard feature, enabled by default. But now phones with the OS are starting to appear in the wild, that appears not to be the case. Google spoke about the feature at launch. As Ars Technica points out, it told The Washington Post…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Mar 3

Blackphone 2 Is Probably the World’s Most Secure Smartphone

“While the rest of the market is going one way, with selfie sticks and curved screens, we’re going down another, to the heart of problems, sticking with privacy and security,” said Silent Circle’s Mike Janke at the launch of the company’s new secure smartphone, the Blackphone 2. And he’s not kidding — though no frills…

Privacy & Security Gerald Lynch - Gizmodo UK Mar 2

PayPal Canceled Mega’s Account Because of Encryption (But Really Piracy)

Mega is one of the only cloud storage services that offers end-to-end encryption, a great feature for people who value security. However, after political pressure from MPAA-affiliated goons, PayPal recently decided to stop providing payment services to Mega. What gives? This is crazy, but unfortunately, it’s not all that surprising. Mega’s long been in the…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes Feb 27

The NSA Has the Master Key to Unlock Your Phone’s Messages

According to top-secret documents given to The Intercept by Edward Snowden, British and American spies stole encryption keys from the largest SIM card manufacturer in the world. This could make it a lot easier for the NSA to conduct widespread surveillance of wireless communications without ever asking permission or even letting on that it’s doing…

Tech News Kate Knibbs Feb 19

So, About Those Supposedly Encrypted Samsung SmartTV Voice Commands…

Remember, oh, about a week ago when Samsung had to clarify that its new SmartTVs aren’t actually ambiently listening to every word you say? That’s all well and good—but it sounds like what those TVs do hear is being transmitted without any encryption whatsoever. Whoops. David Lodge, a white hat hacker with Pen Test Partners,…

Gadgets Sean Hollister Feb 18

The World’s Email Encryption Relies on a Guy Who Is Going Broke

The man who built the free email encryption software used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, as well as hundreds of thousands of journalists, dissidents and security-minded people around the world, is running out of money to keep his project alive. This post was originally published on ProPublica. Werner Koch wrote the software, known as Gnu Privacy…

Privacy & Security Julia Angwin - ProPublica Feb 5

This Tiny Key-Code Flash Drive PIN Protects Your Files—for a Price

Tiny capacious flash drives not only make it easy to carry gigs and gigs of data wherever you go, they also makes it easy to lose gigs and gigs of data. So if you’ve had more flash drives go MIA than you prefer to remember, Toshiba will now let you password protect those lost files…

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski Feb 3

The Hells Angels Are Old Pros at Encryption

The Silk Road trial is back on, and we still don’t know if Ross Ulbricht is going to go down for the crimes of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Today, the trial focused on DPR’s interactions with the Hells Angels, who he allegedly hired to kill a rogue drug vendor. Pretrial materials revealed that the Dread…

Tech News Kate Knibbs Feb 2

Quantum Entanglement Can Now Be Performed on a Chip

The lure of quantum entangled computing is strong, as it can provide a means of impenetrable encryption—but the hardware has always been too bulky to make it practical. Now, though, researchers have shrunk the technology down to less than the width of a human hair, small enough to squeeze onto a chip. The new device,…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe Feb 2

The Encryption Tools the NSA Still Can’t Crack Revealed in New Leaks

Most of us—at least the cynical ones—assume that the NSA has probably beaten most of the encryption technologies out there. But a new report from Der Spiegel that draws on documents from Edward Snowden’s archive shows that this simply isn’t true. There are some tools that the NSA, as recently as two years ago, couldn’t…

Privacy & Security Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Dec 29

How Much Your Inbox Is Worth to Cybercriminals

Many of us have had the experience of receiving a spammy email from a friend or loved one, only to have a frantic follow-up note arrive a few minutes later from that person stating that his or her email account was hacked and warning us not to open or respond to any of the messages…

Privacy & Security Brian Krebs Dec 18

BitTorrent’s Encrypted P2P Chat Service Is Now Live

We’re Closer to an Encrypted Internet than You Think

Today in Congress, We Heard That Encryption is Enabling Upskirt Photos

Online Extortionists Are Using Encryption as a Ransom Weapon

The FBI Would Like Us All to Unencrypt Our Phones

5 Unsettling Works of Encryption Art

Most Americans Aren’t Protecting Themselves Against Surveillance

Hillary Clinton Didn’t Encrypt Her Secretary of State Emails For Months

That Decades-Old FREAK Security Flaw Affects Every Version of Windows

Android 5.0 Devices Aren’t Encrypted By Default—Despite Google Promises

Blackphone 2 Is Probably the World’s Most Secure Smartphone

PayPal Canceled Mega’s Account Because of Encryption (But Really Piracy)

The NSA Has the Master Key to Unlock Your Phone’s Messages

So, About Those Supposedly Encrypted Samsung SmartTV Voice Commands…

The World’s Email Encryption Relies on a Guy Who Is Going Broke

This Tiny Key-Code Flash Drive PIN Protects Your Files—for a Price

The Hells Angels Are Old Pros at Encryption

Quantum Entanglement Can Now Be Performed on a Chip

The Encryption Tools the NSA Still Can’t Crack Revealed in New Leaks

How Much Your Inbox Is Worth to Cybercriminals

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