Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have updated their policies to routinely notify customers when law enforcement has requested information about them.

Defiant Apple, Facebook, other firms to inform public of govt surveillance requests

Published time: May 02, 2014 01:07
Edited time: May 02, 2014 06:42

Reuters / Eric Thayer

The same technology companies that the US intelligence community has relied upon to disclose email records are now refusing to keep surveillance requests secret and informing customers when they are the subject of such requests.
In the nearly ten months since former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed extensive surveillance efforts on everyday Americans’ online activity, the companies that were forced to facilitate that surveillance have come under harsh public scrutiny.
The embarrassment ignited a series of comments from executives at Google and Facebook, among others, calling on the NSA and other agencies to either stop forcing them to provide the communications that customers trust them with, or allow them to be more transparent.
Now, according to a Thursday report in the Washington Post, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have updated their policies to routinely notify customers when law enforcement has requested information about them.
Yahoo enacted such a change in July, with the Post reporting Thursday that companies “have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.”

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• The Washington Post

Apple, Facebook, others defy authorities, notify users of secret data demands

By Craig Timberg, Published: May 1

Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information is targeted for government seizure.This increasingly defiant industry stand is giving some of the tens of thousands of Americans whose Internet data gets swept into criminal investigations each year the opportunity to fight in court to prevent disclosures. Prosecutors, however, warn that tech companies may undermine cases by tipping off criminals, giving them time to destroy vital electronic evidence before it can be gathered.

Graphic

How the NSA is infiltrating private networks

Fueling the shift is the industry’s eagerness to distance itself from the government after last year’s disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance of online services. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to expand routine notification of users about government data seizures, unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority, officials at all four companies said. Yahoo announced similar changes in July.As this position becomes uniform across the industry, U.S. tech companies will ignore the instructions stamped on the fronts of subpoenas urging them not to alert subjects about data requests, industry lawyers say. Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.
“It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data,” said Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at Perkins Coie who represents several technology companies. “And I think that’s a good thing.”
The Justice Department disagrees, saying in a statement that new industry policies threaten investigations and put potential crime victims in greater peril.
“These risks of endangering life, risking destruction of evidence, or allowing suspects to flee or intimidate witnesses are not merely hypothetical, but unfortunately routine,” department spokesman Peter Carr said, citing a case in which early disclosure put at risk a cooperative witness in a case. He declined to offer details because the case was under seal.
The changing tech company policies do not affect data requests approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which are automatically kept secret by law. National security letters, which are administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI for national security investigations, also carry binding gag orders.
The government traditionally has notified people directly affected by searches and seizures — though often not immediately — when investigators entered a home or tapped a phone line. But that practice has not survived the transition into the digital world. Cellular carriers such as AT&T and Verizon typically do not tell customers when investigators collect their call data.
Many tech companies once followed a similar model of quietly cooperating with law enforcement. Courts, meanwhile, ruled that it was sufficient for the government to notify the providers of Internet services of data requests, rather than the affected customers.
Twitter, founded in 2006, became perhaps the first major tech company to routinely notify users when investigators collected data, yet few others followed at first. When the Electronic Frontier Foundation began issuing its influential “Who Has Your Back?” report in 2011 — rating companies on their privacy and transparency policies — Twitter was the only company to get a star under the category “Tell users about data demands.” Google, the next mostly highly rated, got half a star from the civil liberties group.

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Heartbleed Bug Online security breach is described as 'catastrophic'

Internet users told to change ALL passwords in security alert over 'catastrophic' Heartbleed bug

• Online security breach is described as 'catastrophic'

• Alert is result of internet bug Heartbleed being uncovered

• Heartbleed is able to bypass websites' security measures to access passwords and personal information

By Rebecca Evans and Tania Steere

Published: 17:33 EST, 9 April 2014 | Updated: 17:57 EST, 9 April 2014

Internet users have been warned to change all their computer and phone passwords following what could be a ‘catastrophic’ security breach.

Major technology firms have urged the public to immediately update their online security.

The alert is the result of the discovery of an internet bug called ‘Heartbleed’, which is able to bypass computer security settings.

LastPass Heartbleed Checker warns if a website may be at risk. It also reveals websites that aren't affected

HOW TO BEAT THE BUG

If a password is in any dictionary in any language then it will take just three minutes to crack, warned computer expert Tony McDowell.

The worst passwords are the likes of ‘password’, ‘123456’, ‘qwerty’, or your child’s name. Using the same password for every site can leave you even more vulnerable to hackers, he added.
His advice is to use a phrase rather than a word. For example, use ‘nameisabella’ rather than just ‘Isabella’ – and use a mixture of letters and numbers.

A password of ‘name!saBe1la’ would take a year to crack, said Mr McDowell, managing director of Encription Ltd.

‘Most hackers give up after 24 hours unless it is something they really want to gain access to,’ he added.

WHICH MAJOR SITES ARE AT RISK?

Potentially vulnerable sites:

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Google, Gmail, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide, Santander

Safe sites:

Bing, Yahoo, Flickr, LastPass, DuckDuck Go, Natwest, GitHub

The tool is a guide to affected services; it is not a definitive list.

Sites listed as vulnerable may use unreported servers, meaning their status can't be officially verified.

As a result, personal information such as passwords and credit card details has been accessible.


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Heartbleed test

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Occupy Wall Street Leader and Google Employee, Wants to Crowdfund a Private Militia

DAHBOO77


   

Published on Feb 11, 2014

Heads Up Folks! Justine Tunney is connected with Google!

http://pando.com/2014/02/07/occupy-wa...

Exposed: Google’s “Smart Home” Surveillance Plans

Josh del Sol
Activist Post

Two weeks ago, the New York Times’ truth-humor strip on “The Home of the Future” came on the heels of Google’s purchase of ‘smart thermostat’ manufacturer Nest for $3.2 Billion.  With power utility commissions such as California already stating their intention to “expand third-party access” to in-home data, the perfect storm is brewing for Google’s mission of making you their product – even in your own home.

For context, this is the same Google whose executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, told MSNBC:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

While pushing to nullify privacy laws, the Big G obviously doesn’t care about pesky old-fashioned encumbrances like ethics either, as evidenced by this gem:

I would argue that [us] implanting things in your brain is beyond the creepy line – at least for the moment, until the technology gets better.

The timing of Google’s purchase announcement is interesting, coming only a couple weeks after US federal judge William Pauley ruled that the unwarranted NSA phone surveillance against US citizens is legal.

However, federal judge Richard Leon, the European Union, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have all strongly condemned the spy programs.  (The credibility of the Justice Department is in serious question, following revelations that last April it had secretly inked a deal with the Obama Administration to help corporations evade federal wiretap laws.)

The Battleground Hits Home

So where does a ‘smart thermostat’ fit in the current corporatist drive for total in-home surveillance?

For the last couple of years, utilities around the globe have all been touting their new metering systems with buzzwords such as ‘smart’, ‘advanced’, ‘upgraded’, or ‘modernized’.  All rhetoric aside, these devices are intended to integrate with all appliances in your home to form an inescapable wireless data-mining dragnet, dubbed as the “home area network”, with your HVAC and likely other in-home systems overseen by spy-giant Google, if they get their way.

 Around the world, more than 1 million homeowners have now refused

the corporate push to deploy a ‘smart’ meter on their home.

As we’ve seen, even former CIA director David Petraeus was publicly frothing over having the ability to spy through ‘smart’ appliances, intended to wirelessly report back to the meter continuously, while receiving energy-use dictates from the meter.

According to a US Congressional Research Report:

With smart meters, police will have access to data that might be used to track residents’ daily lives and routines while in their homes, including their eating, sleeping, and showering habits, what appliances they use and when, and whether they prefer the television to the treadmill, among a host of other details.

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Google buys 'smart' thermostat maker Nest for £2bn

Smart move: Nest's next-generation smoke alarm, Protect

Oscar Williams-Grut

Published: 14 January 2014

Updated: 09:10, 14 January 2014

Google has spent $3.2 billion (£2bn) acquiring 'smart' home appliances start-up Nest Labs.

California-based Nest makes thermostats and smoke alarms that connect to the internet, allowing people to remotely monitor and control them from their smartphones.
The company was founded by Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive dubbed the "godfather of the iPod" for his work on the MP3 player. He left the position of head of music at Apple in 2008 to found Nest.
Nest launched is first thermostat in 2011 and says its products are now in over a million homes. Late last year the company made its first foray into the UK market, launching its smoke alarm here.
Fadell said in a statement: “We’re thrilled to join Google. With their support, Nest will be even better placed to build simple, thoughtful devices that make life easier at home, and that have a positive impact on the world.”

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Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M

• TechCrunch

Posted  by Catherine Shu (@catherineshu)

• 

Google will buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. The Information reports that the acquisition price was more than $500 million, and that Facebook was also in talks to buy the startup late last year. We’ve emailed Google and DeepMind for comment. The acquisition was originally confirmed by Google to Re/code.
Google’s hiring of DeepMind will help it compete against other major tech companies as they all try to gain business advantages by focusing on deep learning. For example, Facebook recently hired NYU professor Yann LeCunn to lead its new artificial intelligence lab, IBM’s Watson supercomputer is now working on deep learning, and Yahoo recently acquired photo analysis startup LookFlow to lead its new deep learning group.
DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, a former child prodigy in chess, Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg.
This is the latest move by Google to fill out its roster of artificial intelligence experts and, according to Re/code, the acquisition was reportedly led by Google CEO Larry Page. If all three of DeepMind’s founders work for Google, they will join inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was hired in 2012 as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing.

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***Presently there are approximately 143 Google mergers and  acquisitions listed.  I  have  only provided  the  most recent 43.  More  can be seen Here on Wikipedia***

~Desert Rose~
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List of mergers and acquisitions by Google

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This incomplete list is frequently updated to include new information.

Google's logo

Google is a computer software and a web search engine company that has been acquiring, on average, more than one company per week since 2010.^[1] The table below is an incomplete list of acquisitions, with each acquisition listed being for the respective company in its entirety, unless otherwise specified. The acquisition date listed is the date of the agreement between Google and the acquisition subject. The price of each acquisition is listed in US dollars because Google is headquartered in the United States. If the price of an acquisition is unlisted, then it is undisclosed. If the Google service that is derived from the acquired company is known, then it is also listed here.
Google has acquired over 100 companies, with its largest acquisition being the purchase of Motorola Mobility, a mobile device manufacturing company, for $12.5 billion. Most of the firms acquired by Google are based in the United States, and, in turn, most of these are based in or around the San Francisco Bay Area. To date, Google has divested itself of three ^[2] business units: Frommers, which was sold back to Arthur Frommer in April 2012;^[3] SketchUp, which was sold to Trimble in April 2012;^[4] and Google Radio Automation, which was sold to WideOrbit in 2009.^[5]
Many Google products originated as services provided by companies that Google has since acquired. For example, Google's first acquisition was the Usenet company Deja News, and its services became Google Groups. Similarly, Google acquired Dodgeball, a social networking service company, and eventually replaced it with Google Latitude. Other acquisitions include web application company JotSpot, which became Google Sites; Voice over IP company GrandCentral, which became Google Voice; and video hosting service company Next New Networks, which became YouTube Next Lab and Audience Development Group.
Following the acquisition of Israel-based startup Waze in June 2013, Google submitted a "10-Q" filing with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) that revealed that the corporation spent US$1.3 billion on acquisitions during the first half of 2013, with US$966 million of that total going to Waze.^[6]

100	August 1, 2011	Dealmap	One deal a day service	USA	—	Google Offers	[121]
101	August 15, 2011	Motorola Mobility	Mobile device manufacturer	USA	$12,500,000,000	Android, Google TV, Patent portfolio	[122]
102	September 7, 2011	Zave Networks	Digital coupons	USA	—	Google Offers	[123]
103	September 8, 2011	Zagat	Restaurant reviews	USA	$151,000,000	Google Places, Google Maps	[124][125][126]
104	September 19, 2011	DailyDeal	One deal a day service	GER	$114,000,000	Google Offers	[127]
105	October 11, 2011	SocialGrapple	Social media analytics service	CAN	—	Google+	[128]
106	November 10, 2011	Apture	Instantaneous search	USA	—	Google Search	[129]
107	November 14, 2011	Katango	Social circle organization	USA	—	Google+	[130]
108	December 9, 2011	RightsFlow	Music rights management	USA	—	YouTube	[131]
109	December 13, 2011	Clever Sense	Mobile apps	USA	—	Android	[132]
110	March 16, 2012	Milk, Inc	Social networking service	USA	—	Google+	[133]
111	April 2, 2012	TxVia	Online Payment	USA	—	Google Wallet	[134]
112	June 4, 2012	Meebo	Instant Messaging	USA	$100,000,000	Google Hangouts	[135]
113	June 5, 2012	Quickoffice	Productivity Suite	USA	—	Google Docs	[136]
114	July 20, 2012	Sparrow	Mobile apps	FRA	$25,000,000	Gmail	[137][138][139]
115	2012	WIMM Labs	Android powered smartwatches	USA	—	Android	[140]
116	August 1, 2012	Wildfire Interactive	Social media marketing	USA	$450,000,000	Google, Google+	[141]
117	September 7, 2012	VirusTotal.com	Security	ESP	—	Google	[142][143]
118	September 17, 2012	Nik Software, Inc.	Photography	USA	—	Google, Android	[144][145][146]
119	October 1, 2012	Viewdle	Facial recognition	UKR	$45,000,000	Android	[147][148]
120	November 28, 2012	Incentive Targeting Inc.	Digital coupons	USA	—	Google Offers	[149][150]
121	November 30, 2012	BufferBox	Package delivery	CAN	$17,000,000	Google Shopping, Android	[151][152]
122	February 6, 2013	Channel Intelligence	Product ecommerce	USA	$125,000,000	Google Shopping
123	March 12, 2013	DNNresearch Inc.	Deep Neural Networks	CAN	—	Google, Google X	[153]
124	March 15, 2013	Talaria Technologies	Cloud computing	USA	—	Google Cloud	[154]
125	April 12, 2013	Behavio	Social Prediction	USA	—	Google Now	[155]
126	April 23, 2013	Wavii	Natural Language Processing	USA	$30,000,000	Google Knowledge Graph	[156]
127	May 23, 2013	Makani Power	Airborne wind turbines	USA	—	Google X	[157]
128	June 11, 2013	Waze	GPS navigation software	ISR	$966,000,000	Google Maps	[6]
129	September 16, 2013	Bump	Mobile software	USA	—	Android	[158]
130	October 2, 2013	Flutter	Gesture recognition technology	USA	$40,000,000	Google, Android, Google X	[159]
131	October 22, 2013	FlexyCore	DroidBooster App for Android	FRA	$23,000,000	Android	[160]
132	December 2, 2013	Schaft.inc	Humanoid robots	JPN		Google X	[161]
133	December 3, 2013	Industrial Perception	Computer Vision	USA		Google X	[161]
134	December 4, 2013	Redwood Robotics	Robotic Arms	USA		Google X	[161]
135	December 5, 2013	Meka Robotics	Robots	USA		Google X	[161]
136	December 6, 2013	Holomni	Robotic wheels	USA		Google X	[161]
137	December 7, 2013	Bot & Dolly	Robotic cameras	USA		Google X	[161]
138	December 8, 2013	Autofuss	Ads and Design	USA		Google X	[161]
139	December 10, 2013	Boston Dynamics	Robotics	USA		Google X	[162][161]
140	January 4, 2014	Bitspin	Timely App for Android	CHE		Android	[163]
141	January 13, 2014	Nest	Home automation	USA	$3,200,000,000		[164][165]
142	January 15, 2014	Impermium	Internet security	USA		Google+	[166]
143	January 26, 2014	DeepMind Technologies	Artificial Intelligence	UK	$400,000,000		[167]

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Google buys British artificial intelligence firm DeepMind

Google has bought UK start-up DeepMind for a rumoured $400 million

Photo: AFP

By Sophie Curtis, and agencies

9:48AM GMT 27 Jan 2014

Google is buying London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies, according to reports.

Technology news website Re/code, which first reported the deal, said the price was $400 million (£242m), which would make it Google's largest European acquisition so far. Other reports suggest the acquisition price was closer to $500 million.

Google declined to confirm the figure, while privately-held DeepMind was not immediately available for comment.

DeepMind was founded by 37-year-old neuroscientist and former teenage chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, along with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.

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