The privacy-minded search engine DuckDuckGo announced this week that it has reached a milestone. The Google alternative now serves over 10 million searches per day.
Source: Fueled by Snowden and Apple, private search engine DuckDuckGo rapidly grows | Ars Technica
In a closed-door meeting Tuesday, American tech firms lambasted the White House and its continued endorsement of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs.
Silicon Valley to White House, NSA: “What the hell are you doing?” | Ars Technica
There are new interception hurdles everywhere you look. Even plain old SSL encryption is becoming more difficult to snoop on. Previously, governments could rely on complicit or compromised certificate authorities to provide them with the means to intercept encrypted traffic. Thanks to the Iranian government’s overly enthusiastic use of this technique, Google made changes to the Chrome browser to neuter the practice. Similar updates are expected soon in Internet Explorer. There goes another interception technique for law enforcement!
Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Surveillance | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
A documentary about what you’re really agreeing to when you click “I accept”.
CISPA, the controversial cybersecurity bill passed by the House last week, appears to be dead in the Senate. It’s deja vu all over again for the measure, which would authorize private companies to share your email, texts and other personal information with federal agencies without a warrant or other privacy protections. Last year, CISPA also cleared the House but foundered in the Senate.
CISPA, The Privacy-Threatening Cyberspying Bill, Is Dead In The Senate – ReadWrite.
Cory Doctorow on the “privacy bargain”, the war on computer freedom, and his dreams of a ‘techno-utopia. Are you being tricked into giving up your privacy? In an age of social networking, when people everywhere are sharing personal information in exchange for free services, are we over-looking the value of our personal data?
The nation’s major internet service providers on Monday said they are beginning to roll out an initiative to disrupt internet access for online copyright scofflaws. The so-called “Copyright Alert System” is backed by the President Barack Obama administration and was pushed heavily by record labels and Hollywood studios.
ISPs Now Monitoring for Copyright Infringement | Threat Level | Wired.com
Dubbed a “privacy killer” by online activists, love it or hate it, the cyber-security CISPA bill will likely be brought into law—whether it’s from the reintroduction of the bill by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, or President Obama issuing (yet another) executive order.
'Privacy killer' CISPA is coming back, whether you like it or not | ZDNet