Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo file motions to reveal NSA data requests

On Monday, Google updated its request, asking for the company to be “allowed to publish detailed statistics about the types (if any) of national security requests we receive under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including Section 702,” “Given the important public policy issues at stake, we have also asked the court to hold its hearing in open rather than behind closed doors. It's time for more transparency." The company’s stance is that “the levels of secrecy that have built up around national security requests undermine the basic freedoms that are at the heart of a democratic society."

Microsoft also amended its petition on September 9 as it earlier pledged to work with Google in their bid to release Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) request information, meanwhile, the battle for transparency was joined by Facebook and Yahoo!, who also decided to file their claims to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the US government hasn’t done enough to “adequately address” the public concerns about “whether their information is safe and secure with internet companies,” says Facebook's vice president and general council, Colin Stretch.

"We believe there’s more information that the public deserves to know, and that would help foster an informed debate about whether government security programs adequately balance privacy interests when attempting to keep the public safe," he said. in its petition, Facebook asked to publish the total number of orders it receives relating to physical searches, business records and wiretap orders, as well as the total number of users, who had their messages and other personal content released to the NSA.

Yahoo filed a petition similar to Google's as the company named specific FISA orders, on which it wanted to publish more details, the company says it has been unable to engage fully in the debate about whether the government has “properly used its powers”, because it has imposed a restraint on Yahoo's freedom of speech.

source rt.com

Declassified files detail blatant violations, abuse of NSA domestic spying program

The new information from Intelligence Community Documents Regarding Collection under Section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) shows that the government on a daily basis spied on Americans’ telephone numbers, calling patterns as well as users IP addresses during the surveillance of foreign terror suspects. the spying agency crossed referenced a selected list of some 16,000 phone numbers against databases which contained millions of records, thus violating the law, two senior intelligence officials told Bloomberg.

The metadata program which started in 2006 enabled the NSA to gather more information about a specific number that the agency claimed could be linked to terrorist activity. The agency also kept an alert list that was cross-referenced with new numbers to consider whether they should be added to a list of "reasonable articulable suspicion."

The NSA gathered the bulk phone records under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which requires private companies to turn over evidence that is relevant to a terrorism investigation. However, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that the NSA must have “reasonable, articulable suspicion” to run that number against a larger database. Only about 2,000 numbers on the list in 2009 met that legal condition, according to sources.

The released documents according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper relate to “compliance incidents that were discovered by the NSA, reported to the FISC and the Congress, and resolved four years ago.”

According to the documents, the US District Judge Reggie Walton who oversaw a secret US spy court wrote he was "deeply troubled" in March 2009 after discovering government officials had been accessing domestic phone records without “articulable suspicion.”  

source rt.com

U.S. providing some lethal aid to Syrian rebels

The United States has begun distributing some weapons to the Syrian rebels, a spokesman for the Syrian Coalition of groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday, after months of reported delays.

source reuters.com

Obama asks Congress to delay Syria vote

The use of the United States military to strike the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — once thought imminent — could be cancelled after the White House asked on Tuesday for Congress to postpone any vote to authorize an attack.

Amid a potential deal being brokered by Russia that would require Assad to surrender his arsenal of chemical weapons, US President Barack Obama urged lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday to delay a vote authorizing an American assault on the Syrian government.

Obama spent over an hour meeting with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, during which he reportedly told lawmakers to await the results of a potential compromise orchestrated between Russia and Syria. 

source rt.com

Germany sent helicopter to snoop for NSA spy equipment at US consulate

Germany infuriated its American ally after it sent a helicopter to seek out listening posts at the US consulate in Frankfurt, in the wake of revelations that the National Security Agency spied on the European country.

The helicopter flew twice over the consulate, just 60 meters above the building, as German staff took high resolution photographs of potential surveillance equipment on the roof. No listening posts were found, but chinaware inside the consulate was damaged during the operation. The flyover took place on August 28 and was confirmed by officials on both sides after being reported in local media.

"The message to the American friends was meant to be: ‘Stop. Germany strikes back!,’" Spiegel magazine quoted an unnamed German official as saying.

Documents leaked by former NSA employee Edward Snowden this summer revealed that the organization intercepted large amounts of data exchanged between German citizens without any legal authorization. The information also showed that the US maintains spying posts in its embassies around the world. The revelations sparked widespread demonstrations in Germany – a country which is wary of surveillance, largely due to its Stasi past.  

source rt.com

Putin: Syria chem arms handover will work only if US calls off strike

"Of course, all of this will only mean anything if the United States and other nations supporting it tell us that they're giving up their plan to use force against Syria. You can’t really ask Syria, or any other country, to disarm unilaterally while military action against it is being contemplated," President Putin said on Tuesday.

President Putin said that the matter of bringing Syria’s chemical weapons under international control has long been a subject of discussion by experts and politicians.

Putin confirmed that he and President Barack Obama had “indeed discussed” such a possibility on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg last week.

It was agreed, Putin said, “to instruct Secretary of State [John Kerry] and Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] to work together and see if they can achieve some progress in this regard."

President Putin’s comments came shortly after the Syrian government said it would agree to place its chemical weapons arsenal under international control.  

source rt.com

Comparison of iPhone 5s with its main rivals

Storage capacity isn't anything special, but with Apple trying to shove everyone off to the cloud, it's really no surprise that there's not a lot of change there. And while we'll have to wait and see how Apple's custom A7 processor compares to the Snapdragons and Qualcomms we see everywhere else, judging from past processor updates, this baby's going to be razor fast. Plus, the M7 coprocessor should be giving it a major boost.

Of course, with a killer processor comes an unfortunate reality—battery life. Because what's the point of a powerful phone that you can't even turn on? We've seen a mild improvement in this newest iPhone iteration, but going off how fast we've seen iPhone 5 batteries dying, it's not quite enough to make a real difference. Still, the most notable thing missing in the 5S is—still—NFC, which is unfortunate for anyone looking to start taking advantage of features like Google Wallet. Apple seems to be waiting a long, long time to jump on that NFC train, so hopefully we'll see it the next time around. For now, though, it seems to be one of the only things holding it back.

NikeFuel integrated with Game Center on new iPhone 5S

The point system is integrated into iPhone's Game Center and makes use of iPhone 5S' M7 motion coprocessor feature which measures the accelerometer, compass and gyroscope to identify user movement. The feature can then tell apps if the user is moving, driving or standing still.

The motion coprocessor can measure motion data even when the device is asleep, and can save its battery life for use by pedometer or other fitness apps that use the accelerometer throughout the day.

Nike recently outed Apple's new smartphone in an announcement for its Nike E2 Prime Performance training arm band. Product details stated the workout device is compatible with both iPhone 5 and 5S.

source theverge.com

Infinity Blade 3 coming to iOS on Sept. 18

Infinity Blade 3 will feature two playable characters: the warrior Siris and "stealthy female warrior-thief" Isa, each with their own combat styles and collectable weapons and items. Also new is a hub called the Hideout, which serves as a "base of operations where players discover the interactive world map and unlock all-new allies to join their cause."
The game will utilize the new OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics library spec, bringing a new level of fidelity to the Infinity Blade series, including "lens flares that would make JJ Abrams proud."

source theverge.com

Cisco to Acquire WHIPTAIL to Further Accelerate Data Center Performance

In fact, with data loads increasing exponentially because of the immutable trends of virtualization, mobilization, cloud computing, big data and the explosion in rich media applications, there is now a premium, some might even call it table stakes to be a player, for major players to fill out their portfolios to make sure they have all the acceleration touch points that enable higher performance covered. 

Why is this important to Cisco? To put it simply, as part of its over-arching Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) the ability to enhance applications performance by integrating scalable solid state memory into the UCS's fabric computing architecture is believed to provide real differentiated value going forward. This is why an acquisition and not a strategic partnership was the path taken by Cisco.

As Cisco explains it, as new applications such as virtual desktops and data analytics increase the stress on traditional storage arrays, performance is compromised. The company notes, “Bridging the gap between increased application performance demand from servers and what traditional storage systems can deliver, requires that solid state memory systems be brought closer to the application.” WHIPTAIL will enable Cisco to provide the bridge as UCS architecture evolves by integrating data acceleration capability into the compute layer.

This will be accomplished by integrating WHIPTAIL's memory systems with UCS at a hardware and manageability level. Cisco believes this will simplify customers' data center environments by delivering the required performance in a fraction of the data center floor space with unified management for provisioning and administration.

Intel introduces Quark, a tiny chip for the internet of things and wearable computing

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Intel just announced its smallest silicon yet. It's called Quark, and it's one-fifth the size of the company's existing Atom cores, and uses one-tenth the power. Intel CEO Bryan Krzanich just pulled out the tiny Quark X1000 chip at the 2013 Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, and explained that it's for the internet of things: Intel will provide equally miniature reference boards and software to help developers put tiny communicating computers in just about everything — including smartwatches, if developers are interested, an Intel rep clarified that it's the Quark core — not the Quark chip — whose size and power consumption were being compared to Atom. In other words, the actual CPU core inside a Quark chip is one-fifth the size and consumes one-tenth the power of an Atom CPU core. Performance is another matter. Quark is aimed at markets where power consumption and form factor take priority, according to an Intel representative.

source theverge.com

Apple releases iOS 7 golden master to developers ahead of Sept. 18 public launch

Developers testing Apple's new iOS 7 mobile operating system were supplied with the golden master, or presumed final build, of the software on Tuesday after the company revealed its new iPhone lineup, the release of the iOS 7 GM means that developers will have a little over a week to test their applications before the software is made available to the masses. Apple announced earlier Tuesday that iOS 7 will be made available to the public on Wednesday, Sept. 18.