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With everything from pill bottles to air fresheners to strollers and breast pumps now connected to the web, the Internet of Things is truly upon us. And while its nice that the IoT lets me monitor my opiate consumption, my ambient scent level, and my lactation volume all at once, these God-sent efficiencies arent without their drawbacks. Every new point on the network is a new weakness crying out to be exploited, and theres no end of people and organizations willing to exploit it.

If the government ever takes an interest in my daily breastmilk output, a quick hack of my smart pump will give them unfettered access to data as raw as my nipples. And thats just the tip when it comes to how they might fuck with my privacy. Yours, too.

Any device that communicates with your home network and/or your smartphone can potentially be hacked, by the government or someone else. Not only would the hackers be able to see and record any data stored and collected by the device, but they can potentially use it as a backdoor to hack into your network/smartphone itself, and from there to any other connected devices. Suddenly its not just your copious mammalian excretions theyre looking at, but other sensitive information like bank records and exotic massage appointments. Your voice activated dishwasher could become your Judas, turning you in to the NSA for thirty pieces of silver and a filter change.

In Orwells 1984, Big Brothers surveillance was overt. Folks knew the cameras and voice recorders were everywhere, so they acted with appropriate paranoia. In the real world, the IoT has created the largest and most pervasive network of potential spy apparatus ever concocted, and consumers have welcomed it into their homes without a second thought. Even after Snowden and the PRISM revelations, we cant imagine that the government (or anyone else with the time and skill) is using our your voice-activated refrigerator to listen in on phone calls to the Game of Thrones sex line. Or that your smartlampequipped with a camera for multi-gesture motion controlis reporting your habit of shame-eating fish sticks and ketchup while binging Care Bears and Cousins.

But direct observation like this is just the beginning. Yes, law enforcement agencies from local police departments to federal agencies to secret Illuminati-affiliated watchdog organizations now have hundreds of different ways to record your actions and conversations. Weve been a connected society with cameras and microphones in our pockets for a while now; some Israeli hotshots even figured out how to turn your earbuds into bugs. The IoT makes this kind of thing easier once you become a target of an investigation, but its more of a legal game changer than a practical one (whether or not a FISA court can issue a secret warrant to tap your toaster is something for the lawyers to fight out).

A bigger deal is the governments ability to collect all of the information that everybody produces with their online lives and their IoT real-world devices, and to sift through that data looking for new targets. To store all that data indefinitely so they can look back retroactively once new targets are identified. To run Big Analysis on all this Big Data and predict your potential to become a terrorist before you even have a fleeting unpatriotic thought, and to use your IoT music system to figure out what room of the house youre in right when the drone is passing by.

At least it will minimize collateral damage.

Comparisons to 1984 have been cliche for a long time now, and extremely so since the last election cycle, but that doesnt mean they arent apt. Thoughtcrime could very quickly become a thing, now that the IoT can report our every behavior and Big Data can predict our beliefs with a scary degree of accuracy. You wont have to worry about your kids turning you in or a keen bureaucrat tricking you into keeping a journal; your kitchenware and smart curtain rods will tell Big Brother everything they need to know about your hidden thoughts.

Itll be just like Minority Report, except instead of clean-shaven precogs feeding information to a charismatic psychopath like Tom Cruise itll be neck-bearded data miners feeding information to an uncharismatic psychopath like Jeff Sessions.

And lets not forget the criminal component here. Though data mining isnt something most identity thieves and blackmailers will have the resources for, the amount of data a savvy hacker can get away with when they find just one weakness in your panoply of IoT devices should give you pause. Just one improperly encrypted mattress and pictures from that petting zoo birthday party that got waaaay too wild could end up in the hands of your worst enemy. Ted, from accounting. And once Ted has you at his mercy, there isnt an app in the world that can save you.

Dont think this is all just cynicism and scaremongering, either. Then-CIA Chief Gen. David Petraeus said the government would be using the IoT to spy on people back in 2012, about nine months before a bit of cyber stalking and the FBI sifting through his email metadata exposed an extramarital affair, and he resigned. We know what the NSA was doing with our emails and cell phones. The devices we have now give them a data collecting power many orders of magnitude greater, and wed be morons to think they wouldnt use it.

Of course, were willing to shell out thousands of dollars, so we use our phones to track things like how many eggs are left, so we might not be winning any intelligence prizes. Just dont say you werent warned when the breastfeeding regulators come knocking.

Daniel A. Guttenberg is an Atlanta-based writer who fell into the startup world by accident and has been gleefully treading water ever since. He will be survived by his beard and his legacy of procrastination.

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You Down with IoT? (Yeah, the NSA Knows Me) - SnapMunk

The average fee for a professional to prepare and submit a 1040 and state return with no itemized deductions is $176, the average fee for an itemized 1040 with Schedule A and a state tax return is $273, and the average fee for an itemized 1040 with Schedule C and a state tax return is $457, according to a biennial survey from the National Society of Accountants.

A 1040 and state return alone cost an average of $17 less two years ago, or $159, when the NSA last conducted this survey, but a 1040 with a Schedule A and a state return cost the same -- $273. (See Average tax prep fee inches up to $273.)

The tax and accounting professionals surveyed are owners, principals, and partners of local tax and accounting practices with an average 28 years of experience.

The survey covered the average fees charge for a number of other forms, including:

Fees vary by region, firm size, population, and economic strength of an area.

The average tax preparation fee for an itemized 1040 with Schedule A and a state return range from highs of $333 in New England and $329 in the Pacific states to a low of $210 in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

All fees assume a taxpayer has gathered and organized all necessary information: Near three out of four (71 percent) of preparers charge an average fee of $117 for dealing with disorganized or incomplete files.

Most tax and accounting firms also report they have seen no increase in the number of IRS audits during the past two years. The average fee for an IRS audit response letter is $128 and the average hourly fee for an in-person IRS audit is $150.

Most tax and accounting firms offer prospective clients a free consultation, which is worth about $150 based on the average hourly fees of tax preparers, added NSA executive vice president John Ams, in a statement.

Jeff Stimpson is a veteran freelance journalist who previously served as editor of The Practical Accountant.

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Fee for a 1040 averages $176: NSA - Accounting Today

The notoriously secretive National Security Agency is raising security concerns to justify an apparent new policy of pre-emptively denying Freedom of Information Act requests about the agencys contractors.

The policy was cited by John R. Chapman, the agencys chief FOIA public liaison officer, in a letter to Gizmodo on January 17, 2017, three days before Donald Trumps inauguration. In explaining that the agency had declined to even conduct a search for records about a company called SCL Group, Chapman wrote, Please be advised that due to changing security concerns, this is now our standard response to all requests where we reasonably believe acquisition records are being sought on a contract or contract-related activity.

The response appears to indicate that the NSA will no longer releaseor even search forany records pertaining to the private contractors it works with. SCL Group is a U.K.-based behavioral research firm that has reportedly worked with the Department of Defense in the past; its subsidiary Cambridge Analytica was a central component of the Trump campaigns winning strategy.

Several FOIA experts contacted by Gizmodo said they had never heard of such a denial before.

This sounds like a non-Glomar Glomar response, Bradley Moss, deputy executive director for The James Madison Project, told Gizmodo, using a nickname for the notorious practice of national security and law enforcement agencies refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records. There are existing reasons to categorically deny a request, and even to refuse to conduct a search, Moss said, but hes never seen such a response justified in this way.

Theyre clamping down across the board, Moss said. There is clearly a determined and deliberate attempt to plug any gap that might allow the public to see how the national security apparatus actually works. The apparently new standard hasnt been reflected in the regulations that govern the NSAs FOIA practices, and no rules or proposed rules have been recorded in the Federal Register that might illuminate the issue. Any decision by the NSA to pre-emptively deny requests for contractor-related records would be a major departure for the agency; in 2008 it produced a 22-page internal guidebook for responding to just such requests.

Chapmans letter didnt specify which changing security concerns motivated the new policy, and he did not immediately respond to an emailed inquiry from Gizmodo. When we called his office, the person answering the phone told us that Chapman wasnt in the office and that we dont really answer questions over the phone. The NSAs public affairs office did not respond to a request for comment.

Gizmodo will appeal the denial. As for the company we were asking about: SCL Group (originally Strategic Communication Laboratories) has a complicated and sprawling corporate structure that makes it difficult to determine which of its components conduct what business and for whom. Cambridge Analytica, the subsidiary that worked on both the Trump and Brexit campaigns, made some $14.4 million in this election cycle, filings with the Federal Election Commission show, including $5.7 million from Ted Cruzs campaign and $5.6 million from Donald Trumps. The secretive father-daughter duo Robert and Rebekah Mercerbillionaire patrons to both Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conwayare reportedly investors.

SCL Group worked predominately with commercial clients until the late 90s, when the Indonesian government reportedly hired the organization for its psychological warfare expertise to respond to secessionist and religious violence. On its website, SCL Group claims to have worked with a variety of governmental and private entities the world over, including the U.S. State Department. SCL did not return a request for comment. (When we asked the State Department for documentation of that work, an official responded, The claim by the company that you conveyed in your request is peculiar. Without additional information, I am not able to verify the vendors claim.)

If you know anything about the NSAs changing security concerns, SCL Group, or Cambridge Analytica, please do get in touch, on a confidential basis if you like.

Originally posted here:
The NSA Has Found a New Way to Categorically Deny FOIA Requests - Gizmodo

By Collin Breaux | 747-5081 | @PCNHCollinB | CollinB@pcnh.com

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NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY PANAMA CITY Since Monday, hyperbaric doctor Brad Hickey has been isolated from the outside world.

Hickey and five others began a 500-foot descent Monday in the Ocean Simulation Facility (OSF) at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) as part of a 10-day saturation dive. Six divers have been separated from family, friends pretty much everything but each other and an extensive task list since the start of the week and wont come back up until Feb. 2.

Despite the challenging conditions, Hickey was in good spirits Wednesday.

I am doing great, he said. Weve got a great group of divers and, more importantly, weve got a great group of individuals outside working three shifts a day, 24 hours a day, taking care of us.

The divers are all Navy-trained and certified, and have varying degrees of experience with saturation diving.

So far everyone is doing great and there are no medical concerns to speak of, Hickey said.

By Wednesday, the divers had descended more than 300 feet with plans to reach 500 feet. The OSF, built in 1975 and with a working depth of more than 2,000 feet, is a training ground for what-if scenarios such as how equipment and the human body functions several hundred feet underwater.

It simulates open diving at extreme depths, NEDU Lt. Jonathan Brown said.

NEDUs divers arent actually 300 feet below ground this week, however; using the simulation, they are nestled above ground in capsule-shaped wet and dry chambers.

In laymans terms, saturation diving is when divers are sent to safely live in high-pressure environments underwater for an extended period of time. The saturation refers to divers being saturated with nitrogen or helium, which allows them to breathe safely and avoid nitrogen narcosis, Brown said. It has a rich history in Bay County NSA PC is billed as the home of military diving encapsulated at the nearby Man in the Sea Museum where the legendary SEALAB 1 underwater habitat is displayed.

Saturation diving allows the Navy and divers to go deep depths for extended periods of time, NEDU Cmdr. Jay Young said. There is a need for it for depths below 300 feet. ... It allows divers to train inside and to maintain efficiency on the saturation system.

At NEDU, divers are spending this week in hyperbaric chambers, where they are sent food, clothes and other supplies in pressurized chambers from up top. To get to the underwater part of the unit called the wet chamber they pass through whats called a trunk. The entire system is above ground at NSA PC.

NEDU does saturation dives at least twice a year, sometimes more.As common practice, doctors are sent down to live with the divers in case they get sick or injured an essential role, because decompression can take hours, at the least. Before the dive, there were months of heavy planning including medical screenings and equipment testing for divers and chambers.

Decompression sickness also known as the bends is one medical concern for resurfacing divers. Saturation diving cuts down on this, although divers still require time in a decompression chamber once they come back up. The time spent decompressing depends on how long they are down there. Because the divers are descending so deep this week, it will take about six days for them to decompress a rate of about 5-6 feet per hour, Brown said. Their carefully controlled ascent will begin Feb. 2.

While the divers are under, a team in a control room communicates with them and tracks their every move using computer monitors and high-end technology. The team extensively monitors the physical conditions in the OSF, including gas levels, and can alter them for diver safety.

Navy Diver Senior Chief William Sinrich was at the depth control board Wednesday, which also controls the chamber and water temperature. Although the OSF water was a chilly 50 degrees, the team cancontrol the hot water that flows through the divers diving suits.

It feels very important because we do unique evolutions that no other dive command does, Sinrich said. It benefits all the services that use diving and increases medical knowledge.

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NSA PC saturation divers to spend week 500 feet deep - The News Herald

Posted by Edridge D'Souza on January 26, 2017 Leave a Comment

Barack Obama is no longer the president, but some of his actions may still significantly affect us in the coming days. Namely, in early-mid January, he gave 16 agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, access to information collected by the National Security Agencys (NSA) controversial (and arguably unconstitutional) warrantless surveillance program. In essence, the incoming Trump administration will have a much easier time targeting private citizens using information gathered by the controversial PRISM program.

This should be alarming to anyone who cares about privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union has described this sort of spying, conducted with little to no oversight, as blatantly illegal and in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Most of this data was previously only accessible to the NSA. However, opening it up to other agencies means that there is a far greater threat.

Advocates of the NSA will claim that there should be nothing wrong with granting wider access to this data. The common refrain is, You shouldnt be worried if you have nothing to hide. I believe the comic artist Zach Weinersmith refutes this idea rather succinctly:

Everyone has something to hide and usually no one cares. By surveilling everyone, you catch the benign breaches of law and taboo, a character in his comic says while being monitored. If the public are all guilty, the executive part of the government can selectively enforce lawswhich defeats the whole point of separation of powers.

Expanding access to this warrantless data will therefore only increase the power of the executive office. Regardless of the morality or legality of doing so, some might have believed that the executive office would not misuse this power and only use it to stop national security threats. However, in the past year, weve learned not to believe conventional wisdom very much. Former President Obama essentially weaponized the power of the federal government and subsequently handed it over to someone he believes is unfit to serve.

People might have been willing to accept such programs under what they perceive to be a benign administration, but let this be a reminder that power can and will be transferred, and when it is, it will most certainly be used for different purposes than intended. In Trumps administration, if all agencies have access to personal data on every individual, there is very little to stop them from abusing this power. Perhaps this means selectively targeting and arresting political opponents and dissenters for breaking the law, while ignoring supporters who do the same. Perhaps, as it did for the fictional Frank Underwood of House of Cards, this means covertly collecting voter data to rig elections. Or perhaps this means using the information exactly as intended, with no ill intentions.

The problem is, no one knows. There is absolutely no way for any citizen to know how the government is using this power, and with Trumps record on transparency, it seems were not likely to find out. Even if the latter case is true, and the Trump administration only uses this vast amount of power for necessary occasions, there is no oversight and no way to independently verify that it is not being abused. This runs in direct contrast to the constitutional vision of a government constrained by the people.

How can this be stopped? Well, it really cant. Well just have to wait and see what this incoming administration does, and try to hold them accountable when something goes wrong. However, this serves as a valuable lesson to all political parties in the future: do not give excessive power to the federal government, because it can and will fall into the hands of the people you least want it to.

In fact, this rule holds true for the legislative branch as well. In 2013, congressional Democrats voted for a nuclear option that would drastically reduce the Republicans power to block presidential appointments. Now that there is a Republican president making the appointments, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he regrets it. Had the old system been in place, Democrats might still be able to block many of Trumps controversial Cabinet picks.

The take-away from this is that all rules can and will be abused. The public may have perceived Bush and Obama as relatively benign, conducting warrantless surveillance only for our own good. But theres nothing benign about unconstitutional spying. Although theres no telling as of yet how Trump will use this power, its not far-fetched that he, like his predecessors, will also continue the unchecked expansion of executive power. However, with a less-charismatic figurehead, people will hopefully be a bit more careful before allowing the federal government to expand its authority and take away their constitutional rights. Donald Trump has promised to drain the swamp of Washington; lets wait and see if hell also drain the swamp of executive power.

Edridge DSouza is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at edsouza@umass.edu.

Filed under Archives, Columns, Opinion, Scrolling Headlines Tagged with american civil liberties union, Chuck Schumer, DEA, department of homeland security, Donald Trump, fbi, Frank Underwood, NSA, President, PRISM, Trump, Zach Weinersmith

Originally posted here:
NSA surveillance can't go unchecked - The Massachusetts Daily Collegian