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Google Glass, Workday and "WTF, Firefox OS?" -- 10 Things You Need to See on AllThingsD This Week

Eric Johnson — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:00:05 +0000

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

It’s been a long, hectic week for news — so it’s understandable if you’ve missed a couple stories on the technology side of things. Here’s a quick weekend roundup of the news that powered AllThingsD this week:

In an essay in AllThingsD Voices, Jan Chipchase writes that Google Glass is the company’s “unintentional public service announcement on the future of privacy … it threatens surreptitious, unexpected or continuous recording from the perspective of the human-eye/ear view.”
At D: Dive Into Mobile, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced that his messaging app is now bigger than Twitter, which officially claims 200 million monthly active users.
Also announced at our mobile conference were Facebook’s updates to its iPhone and iPad apps to incorporate the “Chat Heads” from Facebook Home. As of Wednesday, those changes have started rolling out to users.
In an interview with Arik Hesseldahl, Workday co-CEO and Greylock Partner Aneel Bhusri said, “it’s the most disruptive time in 25 years” for enterprise, and that landing HP as a customer at Workday “gives people more comfort that the cloud is real.”
Peter Zatko, a computer hacking expert better known as Mudge, is leaving his post at DARPA, where he was tasked with helping government agencies fend off cyber attacks. Mudge’s next stop? Google.
If the netbook wasn’t dead already, it will be soon. New data from research house IHS iSuppli say shipments of the mini-computers will fall to zero by 2015.
Maybe you’ve heard of this small company called Microsoft? Windows Phone head Terry Myerson is casting his division as an underdog and going on the offensive against Google: “[there is] clearly mutiny in the Starship Android,” he said.
Facebook would love to put its new Home overlay on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Apple almost certainly doesn’t want it there. In this interview, Kara Swisher asked Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and mobile head Cory Ondrejka to explain the two companies’ complicated relationship.
If you haven’t heard of Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi yet, you will soon. With 7.19 million handsets sold in 2012, Xiaomi president Bin Lin said the company expects to sell twice as many this year.
And finally, one of readers’ favorite quotes of the week came from AllThingsD’s own Walt Mossberg. He kicked off Dive Into Mobile by asking Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs about Firefox’s mobile operating system: “So … what the f**k?”

To stay on top of the latest, you should follow AllThingsD on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to our daily email newsletter.

Judge Strikes Down Secretive Surveillance Law

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:49:39 +0000

A federal judge this week struck down a controversial set of laws allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seek people’s data without a court’s approval, saying the strict secrecy orders demanded by the laws are not constitutional.

Judge Susan Illston, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said the laws, which underlie a tool known as a “national security letter,” violate the First Amendment and the separation of powers principles. In her order, Judge Illston ordered the government to stop issuing national security letters or enforcing their gag orders, although she said enforcement of her judgment would be stayed pending appeal.

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Koozoo Wants to Help Us "Big Brother" Ourselves and the World Around Us

Liz Gannes — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:00:52 +0000

You know and I know and whoever’s in the big master control room knows that we’re being watched and recorded in so many moments of our lives.

Koozoo is a startup that takes that a bit further — and puts it into our own hands. The San Francisco-based company wants people to contribute their own live video feeds from wherever they are, in order to knit together a network that shows what traffic patterns are like, if a parking spot is available on that block and whether that park is crowded today.

How will people share these video feeds? And why would they want to contribute to this random startup?

Let’s start with the how: Via smartphones. There will be two main options, said Koozoo CEO Drew Sechrist. The first is a fixed view: Take an old smartphone, connect it to Wi-Fi and point it out your window into a public space. Koozoo will send you a free window mount. There’s no audio recording, and the company won’t store everything you shoot, but its software will try to detect changes in the environment and save the most interesting snippets.

The second option is more of a ride-along view. Users can share their personal experience by recording public spaces as they use the Koozoo iPhone app (Android coming soon) on the go.

The harder question to answer is why people will do this. Sechrist thinks there’s pent-up demand to contribute to this kind of project, and thinks people will want to use Koozoo because they like the larger implications of making the living world searchable and accessible. Plus, there’s the voyeuristic community angle: In order to see everyone else’s feeds, you have to share your own.

“In a dense network of cameras, each of these views becomes incredibly valuable,” he said. To that end, Koozoo is only launching in San Francisco and Austin this week.

There’s actually already a pretty great recent example of this kind of system working. Earlier this month when a meteor streaked across the Russian sky, it was captured from many angles by drivers who had dashboard cameras installed in their cars in order to capture an unbiased view of accidents and encounters with highway patrol cops. Those videos were almost immediately posted online, and the rest of the world could viscerally experience and replay this crazy event that had just happened in Russia.

So, for now, Koozoo is just starting — but maybe sometime in the future it will have its dashcam meteor moment.

Koozoo has raised $2.5 million from investors including New Enterprise Associates and Tugboat Ventures.

The Story of Dropcam, a Little Hardware Start-Up With Its Head in the Cloud (Video)

Liz Gannes — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 18:52:19 +0000

Before hardware start-ups, Kickstarter products and “The Internet of Things” were the new hotness, a little company called Dropcam entered a world unfriendly to all those concepts. It was 2009.

Dropcam co-founders Aamir Virani and Greg Duffy

Today, Dropcam is the best-selling surveillance device on Amazon. The company is fairly certain that it processes more video than YouTube per day. It has millions of dollars in revenue per year, up an estimated 400 percent from last year (when they were “well over $1 million”). But it’s still a little start-up — just 23 employees based in San Francisco and Shenzhen.

Dropcam sells a hardware product in a box: A home monitoring video camera. It is much loved by techies and luddites alike. But at its heart, Dropcam is all about the cloud.

Founders Greg Duffy and Aamir Virani are software engineers — they met at the email app start-up Xobni, where the two former Texans say they bonded over long talks about how they’d build a start-up company culture if they got a chance to do it themselves.

As for what the company would actually do, Duffy and Virani decided they wanted to provide a better solution for monitoring large quantities of video.

At least part of the inspiration for Dropcam came from Duffy’s dad, who set up a bunch of IP cameras at home to find out which of his neighbors were letting their dogs poop in his backyard. But his system kept failing because his hard drive would fill up and cause the video to stop recording — or Windows would update and reboot. “It was like a Tim Allen on ‘Home Improvement’ comedy of errors,” Duffy recalled.

Meanwhile, Virani’s dad may not have been obsessed with poop snoopery, but he ran a convenience store, so Virani grew up knowing about expensive proprietary video surveillance systems.

Duffy and Virani wanted to make these video systems simple and modern, but found that the existing camera options were too focused on motion sensors, couldn’t do night vision, or were Web cams that relied on being connected to computers.

“We really think about the software as being the be-all end-all,” said Duffy in a recent interview. “We were forced to get into hardware.”

With painstaking research and trial and error on plastics, industrial design and reliable production (at one point earlier this year they had to replace a batch of faulty devices), Duffy and the Dropcam team developed a camera that has night vision, charges via USB, sends emails and mobile alerts when unusual activity is detected and compresses HD video efficiently. And perhaps the best part — at least, for all my coworkers who use their Dropcams to monitor their dogs during the day — is that you can talk through the camera remotely. It’s fun to be the voice of God.

Unlike many hard-to-install alternatives, all new Dropcam users need to do is connect the device to their Wi-Fi network, give it power and set up an account.

A Dropcam sells for $149.99. After that, it’s free to use, but buyers can upgrade for $9.95 per month for DVR capabilities — something 40 percent of them do.

Perhaps one of the largest problems with Dropcam is explaining why people need a newfangled camera. If you see a highlight reel of guys in squirrel suits flying over mountain tops, you get why you need a GoPro. If you’re a home security nut, you evaluate the options — and there are quite a few. But watching a room in your house 24/7? Why would normal people want to do that?

Duffy and Virani said the most effective way they’ve found to describe Dropcam — so far, at least — is “home monitoring.”

When Dropcam surveyed its users, the most common place they said they put their Dropcam was their living room.

The most popular reason for users to buy a Dropcam is to watch their home, followed by their baby, followed by their pets.

“Most people aren’t expecting a burglar to break in at any time, but they’re insanely curious about what’s going on at home,” Duffy said.

And once people get it, they really get it. Duffy said 25 percent of Dropcam buyers have purchased more than one of the cameras.

Users log in every other day and watch 15 minutes of video, on average. And here’s a pretty weird stat: 90 percent of Dropcam users watch on iPhones. In fact, more people watch on iOS than on the Web (iPad was just recently introduced, too). There’s an Android app available, but Dropcam users seem to be Apple fans.

Still, Dropcam has a way to go to really serve all of the things people are already using it to do — like keep track of their babies. Though the service has relatively low latency — a delay of one to two seconds — that’s longer than some parents would like to wait to hear whether their baby is in trouble. And uploading video all day will tie up just about anyone’s available bandwidth.

Further, many people may resist buying a Dropcam because they don’t want to invite Big Brother into their homes — after all, this video is published on the Internet! But Duffy insisted that his company has the opposite intent — he said it’s a way to give people control over the fact that they’re constantly being surveilled. Private Dropcam video is secure, he said, and once it expires, the company deletes it. (For more of Duffy’s thoughts on this topic, see my video interview with him and Virani.)

[ See post to watch video ]

This has been a big year for Dropcam. It introduced its new HD camera at CES, for half the price of its previous product. It started online retail through Amazon. It launched iPad and Android apps. It raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures and including investors such as Accel Partners and Bay Partners.

So what’s next for the company? Part of the challenge, said Duffy, is growing deliberately. After all, he and Virani first bonded over their interest in corporate culture. Dropcam explicitly hires people with an eye for work-life balance. It provides lunch and breakfast at the office, but never dinner.

“This is a product for family,” said Virani, so it only makes sense to acknowledge that the people who work on it have families and lives. “I don’t want a company where people work 80 hours a week with marginal productivity.”

Compared to other Silicon Valley start-ups, “we view ourselves as counter culture,” Virani added. “We’re not a fraternity.”

Franky the sulcata tortoise

What’s next on the product front? On the software side, it’s getting smarter at processing all that video.

Dropcam has hired a team of in-house computer vision experts to work on features like identifying people and pets to give better context around event detection. Remember that stat about Dropcam processing more video per day than YouTube? “We’re the only ones with a dataset large enough to do this,” Duffy said.

On the hardware side, the No. 1 Dropcam customer request is an outdoor camera. After all, the delinquent poop scoopers of the world need to be shamed.

But there has emerged a friendly flip side to a tool that was originally intended to patrol the bad behavior of pet owners. Because while Dropcam is still mainly used for private personal use, there’s also an option to publish video streams to the public.

A pet shop in Michigan strapped a Dropcam to a 16-year-old, 40-pound tortoise named Franky that roams around the store. They publish “Franky Cam” live online, and it gets thousands of views per day. That includes frequent tune-ins from Dropcam employees, who have made him their unofficial mascot.

When Roll Calls Go High-Tech

Nathan Koppel and Stephanie Banchero — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:30:54 +0000

A federal judge in Texas next week will consider whether a San Antonio high school can force a student to take part in a program that equips students with microchips to track their attendance, despite the student’s protests that the surveillance system violates her religious views.

John Jay Science and Engineering Academy started making students carry “smart ID” badges implanted with microchips this fall to ensure they are counted as present, since some state funding is tied to student attendance.

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Hewlett Packard: Products Weren't Knowingly Sold to Syria

Ian Sherr — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:30:12 +0000

Hewlett-Packard Co. says its technology wasn’t knowingly sold to Syria.

The Palo Alto, Calif., technology giant made that assertion to the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to a letter dated Sept. 6 and disclosed in a recent regulatory filing.

Last year, news reports surfaced saying H-P’s technology was being used as part of a surveillance program by the Syrian government.

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Why America Is Really Worried About Huawei

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 21:35:42 +0000

Concerns about the potential for a national security threat posed by the Chinese networking concern Huawei have been simmering at a low intensity for some time. They burst out into the full glare of publicity today with the release of a report by the House Intelligence Committee saying that Huawei and another Chinese telecom-equipment concern, ZTE, pose sufficient security risks that government agencies should avoid buying their equipment.

There aren’t a lot of specifics to get excited about in the 52-page report, though there are presumably some items of interest in classified portions of the report not released to the public. Huawei has had a difficult time showing to the satisfaction of Western sensibilities that its ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army are severed. If ordered, the thinking goes, Huawei gear could be turned into a valuable espionage tool in the event of war with the U.S. or another country.

The concerns on the part of U.S. lawmakers and the national security establishment are certainly valid, but not for the reasons you think. While Chinese actors have certainly been among the most active when it comes to attacking the networks of large U.S. corporations and stealing their secrets, the U.S. and its allies fret about letting Huawei in because they know from their own experience how imported electronics can be turned into a weapon of espionage and outright sabotage.

Remember that it was intelligence agencies of the U.S., in partnership with Israel, that turned deep knowledge of the numerous variants of Microsoft’s Windows operating system combined with specialized knowledge of industrial control systems to create the Stuxnet worm that damaged the Iranian nuclear research program. Later discoveries included other U.S.-Israeli cyber weapons called Flame and Gauss. Taken together, they amount to evidence that the countries had mounted a less-than-covert military campaign against Iran that could in time have significant unintended consequences.

Prior efforts include a largely forgotten 1982 campaign of electronic sabotage against the natural gas pipeline being built by the Soviet Union that caused so large an explosion that U.S. military forces briefly thought it was an early sign of a nuclear attack. The episode was documented in the book “At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War” by Thomas Reed, the late former secretary of the Air Force under President Reagan.

Another incident, this one not as well documented but the subject of a great deal of informed speculation, concerns a 2007 Israeli air strike against what was at the time a suspected nuclear weapons research facility in Syria. A report by the IEEE Spectrum the following year traced reports that a French chip company that supplied the manufacturer of Syrian radar defense gear included a “kill switch” that allowed Israeli bombers to carry out their attack undetected.

So it’s not from out of nowhere that such national security concerns arise about a Chinese telecom concern.

One fundamental failure of all this official hand-wringing is that it neglects the fact that many if not most of the components, with the exception of certain higher-value chips like those from Intel, are manufactured in China. Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks in the U.S., Alcatel-Lucent in France and Ericsson in Sweden, all use Chinese-made parts and carry out at least some portion of the final assembly of their equipment in China.

Huawei certainly hasn’t done itself any favors. While its most senior U.S. employee described the company as “an open book” in a surprisingly short segment on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last night (see the video below), its founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, has never sat for an interview with a Western media outlet. And the precise ownership of the company’s shares are murky. U.S. regulators have prevented it from making certain acquisitions, and in Australia it was blocked from bidding on portions of a project to build a national broadband Internet network.

It hasn’t gotten to be the world’s largest telecom equipment concern for nothing. Wireless phone networks in Africa rely heavily on inexpensive gear sold by Huawei. There are suspicions about its dealings in this area too, though they are mostly economic. Huawei has a history of undercutting Western rivals in competitive bids by as much as 5 percent to 15 percent, raising suspicion that it is the benefactor of state-sponsored subsidies. However, it’s also to the benefit of these rivals to stoke the national security concerns as much as possible.

All told, it’s not as though there is no reason to be suspicious of Huawei, if only because the U.S. and its allies know too well from their own actions in recent years about the potential for electronic espionage, surveillance and warfare.

For its part, Huawei defended itself and attacked the report in a response today (read it in full here). The company said the committee’s report, an 11-month effort, “failed to provide clear information or evidence to substantiate the legitimacy of the Committee’s concerns” and “appears to have been committed to a predetermined outcome” and “employs many rumors and speculations to prove non-existent accusations.”

Without having read the classified portions of the report, which are said to contain more specifics — it mentions only vague instances of “beaconing,” which is intended to mean sending data back to China — it’s hard to argue with Huawei’s position.

Nor is it easy to dismiss the committee’s fears out of hand. Which brings us to the possible unintended result of all this: Might China respond with its own restrictions against U.S. telecom firms like Cisco and Juniper? Is this the first shot of a telecom trade war? We’ll see.

If that happens, expect Cisco to be hurt more than Huawei. U.S. sales account for only 4 percent of its overall revenue, whereas Cisco’s operations in Asia, the Pacific Rim and China account for more than 16 percent, and China was its second fastest-growing market in that region after Japan.

Huawei-ZTE Investigative Report (FINAL)

Law Enforcement Getting a Little Too Giddy With Cellphone Records Requests

John Paczkowski — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:51:16 +0000

Here’s a disturbing, yet sadly unsurprising revelation. Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made more than 1.3 million requests for cellphone records in 2011, demanding everything from text messages to location data. And the number of requests is up sharply over the past five years, according to a congressional inquiry conducted by Rep. Edward J. Markey, D.-Mass., who called the results “startling.”

Kennel-Cam Apps Let You Spy on Spot (Video)

Jessica Parks — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:05:03 +0000

Online Doggy sets up kennel-cam systems at pet-boarding facilities across the country, allowing dog owners to view real-time streaming videos from the pet-care playground.

And the Colorado-based company took helicopter pet-parenting a step further this year, creating ODoggy apps for iPhone and Android.

“It was something we had to do,” Online Doggy owner Blake Walliser said of the new apps, which offer streams from more than 400 pet-care providers in the U.S.

The company found that the customers who were most enthusiastic about video streaming were also more likely to be tethered to their smartphones than their laptops. “Mobile is built into our demographic,” he said.

Round-the-clock surveillance, streamed right to your phone — it’s apparently a dream come true for the severely paranoid, or those who feel naked without a dog in their purse.

But there are relatively few of those types in Walliser’s demographic. Most viewers are not necessarily pet owners checking in on their canine’s caregivers — many are commuters who access the site out of boredom, curiosity or for a spot of amusement.

Patricia Minger, a pharmacy technician who boards her Icelandic sheepdog five days a week at Happy Hound in Oakland, said she visits the site “at least once a day, probably more like twice or three times a day,” to check up on her dog, Gimli. She also uses the iPhone app when she’s out and about.

“I like the security of knowing that this is all what it seems to be — that I can check in on him and there’s nothing hidden,” Minger said.

The ODoggy apps are free to download, but subscriptions to each facility’s video stream costs $1.99 a month or $4.99 a year. The iPhone app, released in April, currently has about 40,000 subscribers. The Android app came out in August, and with about 10,000 users, is quickly gaining ground.

After a Christmas-season boom, Online Doggy expects to break even — development fees ran into the six figures — in another month or two. After that, Walliser said, “our intent is to drop the price of the apps.”

Although the apps appear to offer a steady profit stream, Walliser sees them more as a customer-service perk. It’s a way to attract new clients — by helping his clients attract new clients.

Suzanne Golter had the cameras installed when she opened her Happy Hound business eight years ago. She said the tapes have helped her convey a sense of transparency and peace of mind to customers.

“I think it’s a ‘feel-good’ for the clients,” she said. “We’re a very transparent company, so everything we do is out there in the open.”

A monitor on Golter’s desk lets her see all of the Happy Hound yards from her office. And, in the event of a dog-on-dog altercation, she can go back to the tapes to “see who caused it, what happened, and take it from there.”

Still, the systems leave room for improvement: Apple users can only access the Java-powered “regular quality” stream, which is more like stop-motion than video. The higher-quality desktop stream requires Windows, Internet Explorer and an Active X control called Live.cab.

Windows 7 users face an even longer list of setup requirements. The result of all those clicks is a stream just barely fast enough to be called video. And even then, the lighting is less than optimal, the angles are odd and you may have to watch the crowded playground for a while before catching a glimpse of your dog.

A few customers at Happy Hound said they’re glad the cameras are there, but don’t tap into them very often because of the low visual quality.

Walliser initially sought to peddle his streaming surveillance service to childcare centers, but parents found it creepy, and facilities weren’t interested in having parents scrutinize their every move.

He founded Online Doggy in 2001, and now serves 470 clients in 46 states. The company also sells a $299 at-home pet cam equipped to live-stream on computers or mobile devices.

“A lot of people who buy those are just curious — what does their dog do all day at home?” Walliser said, noting they are often surprised at what the camera captures. “They place the camera where they think the dog spends the whole day, and they are wrong.”

So you think Fido wouldn’t dare jump on your bed? There’s only one way to find out …

[ See post to watch video ]

Bill Aims to Curb Tech Firms' Exports

Steve Stecklow — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:00:05 +0000

Pressure mounted Thursday on U.S. and Western companies that sell censorship and surveillance technology to repressive regimes, with a congressman introducing a bill that would restrict such exports.

Separately, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on corporations to do “human-rights due diligence” before making sales in new markets.

“In recent months we’ve seen cases where companies’ products and services were used as tools of oppression,” Mrs. Clinton told a conference on Internet freedom in the Netherlands.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Carrier IQ Speaks: Our Software Ignores Your Personal Info

John Paczkowski — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:35:42 +0000

Carrier IQ, maker of a network diagnostic tool installed on millions of smartphones, has a simple rebuttal to accusations that its software logs keystrokes on the devices on which it is installed:

It doesn’t.

While CIQ might “listen”* to a smartphone’s keyboard, it’s listening for very specific information. Company executives insist it doesn’t log or understand keystrokes. It’s simply looking for numeric sequences that trigger a diagnostic cue within the software. If it hears that cue, it transmits diagnostics to the carrier.

So, for example, if during a support call a technician asks a customer to enter a short code, CIQ will be listening for it; when it’s entered, CIQ will relay the appropriate diagnostic information to the carrier. Any keystrokes beyond that are ignored.

“The software receives a huge amount of information from the operating system,” Andrew Coward, Carrier IQ’s VP of marketing, told AllThingsD. “But just because it receives it doesn’t mean that it’s being used to gather intelligence about the user or passed along to the carrier.”

So what are we really seeing in security researcher Trevor Eckhart’s video, which shows Carrier IQ collecting all sorts of information about how a phone is being used and where?

“What the Eckhart video demonstrates is that there’s a great deal of information available on a handset,” says Coward. “What it doesn’t show is that all information is processed, stored, or forwarded out of the device.”

Okay. Then what information is being captured and passed along to the carriers who use Carrier IQ? Data related to call quality, battery life, device crashes — everything you’d expect, really.

“If there’s a dropped call, the carriers want to know about it,” says Coward. “So we record where you were when the call dropped, and the location of the tower being used. … Similarly, if you send an SMS to me and it doesn’t go through, the carriers want to know that, too. And they want to know why — if it’s a problem with your handset or the network.”

And Coward is quick to point out that CIQ isn’t doing anything nefarious with our text messages, either.

“We don’t read SMS messages. We see them come in. We see the phone numbers attached to them. But we are not storing, analyzing or otherwise processing the contents of those messages.”

The same is true of Web site URLs. CIQ has the ability to capture them, but not the associated content. So it might note a device having trouble accessing Facebook, but not the content on Facebook itself.

Which is reassuring. That said, CIQ still has the ability to capture a wide variety of user data. So who is determining what exactly is being collected?

The carriers. They decide what’s to be collected and how long it’s stored — typically about 30 days. And according to Carrier IQ, the data is in their control the whole time.

“It’s the operator that determines what data is collected,” says Carrier IQ CEO Larry Lenhart. “They make that decision based on their privacy standards and their agreement with their users, and we implement it.”

On this point, Lenhart is particularly emphatic. “We capture only the data they specify, and provide it to them,” he reiterates. “We don’t capture more than that.”

Which sounds a bit like “we only do what they asked us to,” but, as Coward reminds us, the carriers’ behavior is governed by their contract with customers.

“What’s actually gathered, stored and transmitted to the carrier is determined by its end-user agreement,” he says. “And, as I’m sure you’re aware, the carriers are highly sensitive about what data they’re allowed to capture and what they’re not allowed to capture.”

One last question: Does Carrier IQ share the data it collects with other third parties beyond the carriers? A vehement no from Lenhart. “The data is the consumer’s data,” he says. “We would never take that data and distrubute it to a third party. We are prohibited from doing that by our agreements.”

Trevor Eckhart did not respond to a request for comment.

(*Handy euphemism for “pattern match filtering.”)

Here’s a freshly released Carrier IQ statement:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec 01, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — To clarify misinformation on the functionality of Carrier IQ software, the company is updating its statement from November 23rd 2011 as follows:

We measure and summarize performance of the device to assist Operators in delivering better service.

While a few individuals have identified that there is a great deal of information available to the Carrier IQ software inside the handset, our software does not record, store or transmit the contents of SMS messages, email, photographs, audio or video. For example, we understand whether an SMS was sent accurately, but do not record or transmit the content of the SMS. We know which applications are draining your battery, but do not capture the screen.

“Having examined the Carrier IQ implementation it is my opinion that allegations of keystroke collection or other surveillance of mobile device user’s content are erroneous,” asserts Rebecca Bace of Infidel Inc. a respected security expert.

Privacy is protected. Consumers have a trusted relationship with Operators and expect their personal information and privacy to be respected. As a condition of its contracts with Operators, CIQ operates exclusively within that framework and under the laws of the applicable jurisdiction. The data we gather is transmitted over an encrypted channel and secured within our customers’ networks or in our audited and customer-approved facilities.

Carrier IQ is aware of various commentators alleging Carrier IQ has violated wiretap laws and we vigorously disagree with these assertions.

Our software makes your phone better by delivering intelligence on the performance of mobile devices and networks to help the Operators provide optimal service efficiency. We are deployed by leading Operators to monitor and analyze the performance of their services and mobile devices to ensure the system (network and handsets) works to optimal efficiency. Operators want to provide better service to their customers, and information from the device and about the network is critical for them to do this. While in-network tools deliver information such as the location of calls and call quality, they do not provide information on the most important aspect of the service – the mobile device itself.

Carrier IQ acts as an agent for the Operators. Each implementation is different and the diagnostic information actually gathered is determined by our customers — the mobile Operators. Carrier IQ does not gather any other data from devices.

CIQ is the consumer advocate to the mobile operator, explaining what works and what does not work. Three of the main complaints we hear from mobile device users are (1) dropped calls, (2) poor customer service, and (3) having to constantly recharge the device. Our software allows Operators to figure out why problems are occurring, why calls are dropped, and how to extend the life of the battery. When a user calls to complain about a problem, our software helps Operators’ customer service more quickly identify the specific issue with the phone.

Related Posts on Carrier IQ:

Exclusive Interview: Carrier IQ Gets Transparent About Its Mobile Monitoring

Carrier IQ: How to Hack Back Your Phone

Carrier IQ Speaks: Our Software Monitors Service Messages, Ignores Other Data

Apple: We Stopped Supporting Carrier IQ With iOS 5

RIM, HTC, Google on Carrier IQ: Blame the Carriers

Carrier IQ Improves My Wireless Service by Logging My Keystrokes? Please Explain.

Full Carrier IQ Coverage »

RIM, HTC, Google on Carrier IQ: Blame the Carriers

John Paczkowski — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:10:36 +0000

If Carrier IQ is running on your smartphone, it’s likely not the device manufacturer that put it there.

Smartphone manufacturers are fast lining up to distance themselves from the Carrier IQ privacy debacle. Responding to reports that Carrier IQ’s smartphone diagnostics software has been found on their handsets, Research In Motion and HTC issued statements today denying responsibility for it, and Google said it had no control over the matter.

None of them admitted to installing or authorizing their carrier partners to install the software which security researchers have shown to log essentially every keystroke made on devices on which it is running.

RIM claimed to have nothing to do with Carrier IQ on its devices.

“RIM is aware of a recent claim by a security researcher that an application called ‘CarrierIQ’ is installed on mobile devices from multiple vendors without the knowledge or consent of the device users,” the company said in a statement. “RIM does not pre-install the CarrierIQ app on BlackBerry smartphones or authorize its carrier partners to install the CarrierIQ app before sales or distribution. RIM also did not develop or commission the development of the CarrierIQ application, and has no involvement in the testing, promotion, or distribution of the app. RIM will continue to investigate reports and speculation related to CarrierIQ.”

HTC went one step further, fingering the carriers outright. “Carrier IQ is required on devices by a number of U.S carriers so if consumers or media have any questions about the practices relating to, or data collected by, Carrier IQ we’d advise them to contact their carrier,” the company said, stressing that it is not a customer or partner of Carrier IQ. “HTC is investigating the option to allow consumers to opt-out of data collection by the Carrier IQ application,” it added.

Google also disclaimed any connection, saying, “We do not have an affiliation with CarrierIQ. Android is an open source effort and we do not control how carriers or OEMs customize their devices.”

Carrier IQ and Sprint haven’t yet returned requests for comment. AT&T said simply, “In line with our privacy policy, we solely use CIQ software data to improve wireless network and service performance.”

Verizon claims not to use Carrier IQ, though telecom industry sources tell me it almost certainly uses something similar to it.

Related Posts on Carrier IQ:

Exclusive Interview: Carrier IQ Gets Transparent About Its Mobile Monitoring

Carrier IQ: How to Hack Back Your Phone

Carrier IQ Speaks: Our Software Monitors Service Messages, Ignores Other Data

Apple: We Stopped Supporting Carrier IQ With iOS 5

RIM, HTC, Google on Carrier IQ: Blame the Carriers

Carrier IQ Improves My Wireless Service by Logging My Keystrokes? Please Explain.

Full Carrier IQ Coverage »

Carrier IQ Improves My Wireless Service by Logging My Keystrokes? Please Explain.

John Paczkowski — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:45:41 +0000

Carrier IQ says its software makes cellphones “work better by identifying dropped calls and poor service,” but evidently it does quite a bit more. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart has discovered that it can as well monitor keystrokes, location and received messages, and typically does.

In an 18-minute video clip posted to YouTube, Eckhart demonstrates Carrier IQ’s software as it records virtually all keystrokes made on an HTC Evo 3D. Worse still, it’s shown logging encrypted Web searches, text messages and, well, you name it. In other words, it’s entirely possible that the wireless carriers who install Carrier IQ’s software on cellphones are able to watch what their subscribers are doing on their phones as they do it. Says Eckhart, “So, instead of seeing dropped calls in California, they now know ‘Joe Anyone’s’ location at any given time, what he is running on his device, keys being pressed, applications being used.”

Disconcerting to say the least. More so since Carrier IQ claims its “Mobile Intelligence platform” is currently deployed on more than 150 million devices worldwide, generally installed by the carrier. Eckhart says he’s found it on Android and BlackBerry devices, and others have found evidence of it on iOS, though it does appear to be disabled by default (if it is enabled, it can be turned off pretty simply).

As privacy violations go, this one seems particularly outrageous, though Carrier IQ would likely describe that characterization as an overreaction. It claims it doesn’t track keystrokes, nor does it sell information to third parties.

“While we look at many aspects of a device’s performance, we are counting and summarizing performance, not recording keystrokes or providing tracking tools,” the company said in a statement. “The metrics and tools we derive are not designed to deliver such information, nor do we have any intention of developing such tools.”

That’s great, but it doesn’t really explain what we see in the video above, in which the application is very clearly logging keystrokes.

If Carrier IQ isn’t recording keystrokes, why is it logging them?

That’s a question U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) would like answered. In a letter to Carrier IQ President and CEO Larry Lenhart today, Franken called on the exec to explain exactly what information the software records, whether that information is transmitted to Carrier IQ or to other companies, and whether that information is shared with anyone else.

“… It appears that Carrier IQ’s software captures a broad swath of extremely sensitive information from users that would appear to have nothing to do with diagnostics—including who they are calling, the contents of the texts they are receiving, the contents of their searches, and the websites they visit,” Franken wrote. “These actions may violate federal privacy laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This is potentially a very serious matter.”

Related Posts on Carrier IQ:

Exclusive Interview: Carrier IQ Gets Transparent About Its Mobile Monitoring

Carrier IQ: How to Hack Back Your Phone

Carrier IQ Speaks: Our Software Monitors Service Messages, Ignores Other Data

Apple: We Stopped Supporting Carrier IQ With iOS 5

RIM, HTC, Google on Carrier IQ: Blame the Carriers

Carrier IQ Improves My Wireless Service by Logging My Keystrokes? Please Explain.

Full Carrier IQ Coverage »

Bill Would Curb Exports of Spyware

Steve Stecklow — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:00:54 +0000

A bill that would restrict U.S. exports of technology that can be used by repressive regimes to censor the Internet or conduct surveillance on users will be introduced in the House soon.

The sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), said the proposed legislation is in response to reports that some governments have used American products to crack down on dissidents.

“How will all these dictatorships ever matriculate into democracy if the dissenters … are all in prison, hunted down with high-tech capabilities sold or acquired through U.S.-listed companies?” Mr. Smith said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The Surveillance Catalog

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:00:30 +0000

Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Firms Aided Libyan Spies

Paul Sonne and Margaret Coker — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:03:42 +0000

On the ground floor of a six-story building here, agents working for Moammar Gadhafi sat in an open room, spying on emails and chat messages with the help of technology Libya acquired from the West.

The recently abandoned room is lined with posters and English-language training manuals stamped with the name Amesys, a unit of French technology firm Bull SA, which installed the monitoring center. A warning by the door bears the Amesys logo. The sign reads: “Help keep our classified business secret. Don’t discuss classified information out of the HQ.”

The room, explored Monday by The Wall Street Journal, provides clear new evidence of foreign companies’ cooperation in the repression of Libyans under Col. Gadhafi’s almost 42-year rule. The surveillance files found here include emails written as recently as February, after the Libyan uprising had begun.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Cisco Poised to Help China Keep an Eye on Its Citizens

Loretta Chao and Don Clark — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:00:54 +0000

Western companies including Cisco Systems Inc. are poised to help build an ambitious new surveillance project in China — a citywide network of as many as 500,000 cameras that officials say will prevent crime but that human rights advocates warn could target political dissent.

The system, being built in the city of Chongqing over the next two to three years, is among the largest and most sophisticated video surveillance projects of its kind in China and perhaps the world. Dubbed “Peaceful Chongqing,” it is planned to cover a half-million intersections, neighborhoods and parks over nearly 400 square miles, an area more than 25 percent larger than New York City.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The Really Smart Phone

Robert Lee Hotz — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:00:51 +0000

Apple and Google may be intensifying privacy concerns by tracking where and when people use their mobile phones–but the true future of consumer surveillance is taking shape inside the cellphones at a weather-stained apartment complex in Cambridge, Mass.

For almost two years, Alex Pentland at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has tracked 60 families living in campus quarters via sensors and software on their smartphones–recording their movements, relationships, moods, health, calling habits and spending. In this wealth of intimate detail, he is finding patterns of human behavior that could reveal how millions of people interact at home, work and play.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Shunned Profiling Technology on the Verge of Comeback

Steve Stecklow and Paul Sonne — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:00:49 +0000

One of the most potentially intrusive technologies for profiling and targeting Internet users with ads is on the verge of a comeback, two years after an outcry by privacy advocates in the U.S. and Britain appeared to kill it.

The technology, known as “deep packet inspection,” is capable of reading and analyzing the “packets” of data traveling across the Internet. It can be far more powerful than “cookies” and other techniques commonly used to track people online because it can be used to monitor all online activity, not just Web browsing. Spy agencies use the technology for surveillance.

Now, two U.S. companies, Kindsight Inc. and Phorm Inc., are pitching deep packet inspection services as a way for Internet service providers to claim a share of the lucrative online ad market.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

See, We Told You It Was a Dangerous Precedent

John Paczkowski — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:45:53 +0000

“We think it sets a dangerous precedent.”

–State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on the United Arab Emirates BlackBerry ban

Coming as it does after the State Department’s condemnation of the United Arab Emirates demand for oversight of BlackBerry mobile services, a White House-sponsored bill that would require all Internet-based communication services to be technically capable of intercepting and unscrambling encrypted messages on behalf of the government seems more than a little ironic.

Sadly, that irony appears to have been lost on the Obama administration, which plans to submit the bill for congressional deliberation next year despite the unsettling implications. Requiring providers of encrypted communications services to create back doors through which government officials with a wiretap order can eavesdrop carries no guarantee that only government officials with wiretap orders will use them, is it?

“Back door” is really just another term for vulnerability, and there are plenty of interests out there willing to try their hand at exploiting them. And that’s without including the National Security Agency.

“I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Columbia University computer science professor Steven Bellovin told The New York Times. “If they start building in all these back doors, they will be exploited.”

Germany Questions Google's Data "Mistake"

John Paczkowski — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:59:51 +0000

With its admission last week that its Street View cars unwittingly captured data sent over unsecured wireless Wi-Fi networks, Google (GOOG) appears to have run afoul of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sources familiar with the matter tell the Financial Times that the Federal Trade Commission is considering an inquiry into the matter, and the panel of European privacy regulators that advises the European Commission is calling for a full investigation to determine exactly what information was collected and whether the manner of its collection was a violation of privacy law.

The Europeans seem particularly miffed over the cock-up and Google’s explanation for it, which they find a bit suspect. Over the weekend, Peter Schaar, Germany’s federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, fired off a caustic blog post questioning the credibility of the company’s claim that personal data were collected accidentally.

“So everything was a simple oversight, a software error!” Schaar wrote. “The data was collected and stored against the will of the project’s managers and other managers at Google. If we follow this logic further, this means: The software was installed and used without being properly tested beforehand. Billions of bits of data were mistakenly collected, without anyone in Google noticing it, including Google’s own internal data protection managers, who two weeks ago were defending to us the company’s internal data protection practices.”

Have to admit, he does have a point. How does a company with Google’s smarts and technological acumen collect and store Wi-Fi network payload data in more than 30 countries for three years without being aware of it?

Mistakes are made, I suppose. But the breadth of this one is pretty incredible. As Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Financial Times, “This may be one of the most massive surveillance incidents by a private corporation that has ever occurred. It is unprecedented vacuuming of WiFi data by a private company. Can you imagine what would happen if a German corporation was sending cars through Washington sucking up all this information?”

Yes, but to err is human…

What's the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

John Paczkowski — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:48:45 +0000

“We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company’s decision to offer a censored version of its search services in China, Jan. 30, 2006

Evidently Google is taking its informal “don’t be evil motto” a bit more seriously these days. The search sovereign threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after detecting a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Targeted in the assault: The Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in a post to the company blog.

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” Drummond added. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China? Hmm. What’s the Chinese word for “Bing”?

Drummond didn’t directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating the incursion, but he certainly seems to be implying there’s a link. And you’d think one would have to exist for Google (GOOG) to threaten pull out of a country that has more Internet users than the total population of the U.S.–even if its efforts to gain market share there haven’t met with the same success as in the rest of the world.

It’s tough to stake your claim in a country where the government favors the local rival and blocks your traffic if you fail to censor. Baidu’s share of the Chinese search market in the third quarter was 77 percent, up from 75.6 percent. Google’s share for the same period? Just 17 percent, down from 19 percent.

So, to some extent, Google can probably threaten to leave China because the country accounts for such a small portion of its revenue. On the other hand, China leads the world in Internet users and presents a hell of a market opportunity–large enough that Google willingly provided a censored version of its services as a prerequisite for doing business there. Or, rather, it used to.

At $395.50 Baidu shares are up more than two percent after hours on the news. Google shares are down 1.6 percent at $581.01.

Drummond’s post in full, below, as well as another on the safety of data on Google by Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise:

A new approach to China

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Keeping your data safe

Many corporations and consumers regularly come under cyber attack, and Google is no exception. We recently detected a cyber attack targeting our infrastructure and that of at least 20 other publicly listed companies. This incident was particularly notable for its high degree of sophistication. We believe Google Apps and related customer data were not affected by this incident. Please read more about our public response on the Official Google Blog.

This attack may understandably raise some questions, so we wanted to take this opportunity to share some additional information and assure you that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of your data.

This was not an assault on cloud computing. It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure.

While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust.

New Chinese Version of Google SafeSearch Eliminates Google Entirely

John Paczkowski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:30:37 +0000

Google’s mission, to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, has once again run afoul of the Chinese government, which has a similar goal, but would much prefer that certain information stay inaccessible. And so, on Wednesday evening, Chinese citizens found themselves once again unable to use Google, Gmail and YouTube as their government condemned Google as a purveyor of porn.

“According to complaints from many residents, Google’s English language search engine has spread large amounts of vulgar content that is lascivious and pornographic, seriously violating China’s relevant laws and regulations,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly scheduled news conference. “I’d like to stress that google.com, as an Internet enterprise providing services in China, should earnestly abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

The disruption of Google (GOOG) services follows a widely criticized mandate from Beijing requiring all computers sold in the country to include Green Dam, an application designed to prevent citizens from viewing “offensive” content, which in the Chinese government’s case includes all manner of material. From a report by the Open Net Initiative, an academic consortium dedicated to the study of censorship and surveillance:

The version of the Green Dam software that we tested, when operating under its default settings, is far more intrusive than any other content control software we have reviewed. Not only does it block access to a wide range of web sites based on keywords and image processing, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, it actively monitors individual computer behavior, such that a wide range of programs including word processing and email can be suddenly terminated if content algorithm detects inappropriate speech. The program installs components deep into the kernel of the computer operating system in order to enable this application layer monitoring. The operation of the software is highly unpredictable and disrupts computer activity far beyond the blocking of websites.

…The deeply intrusive nature of the software opens up several possibilities for use other than filtering material harmful to minors. With minor changes introduced through the auto-update feature, the architecture could be used for monitoring personal communications and Internet browsing behavior. Log files are currently recorded locally on the machine, including events and keywords that trigger filtering. The auto-update feature can used to change the scope and targeting of filtering without any notification to users.

Understanding Your Phone Bill: Telecom Immunity Charge

John Paczkowski — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:08:44 +0000

Sen. Chris Dodd’s threats of a filibuster forced the Senate to reconsider the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act once before. Sadly, they didn’t get it rewritten, which is why the Connecticut Democrat is now threatening to filibuster it again.

Yesterday Dodd, along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) said they plan to take steps to block FISA as long as it grants retroactive immunity to telecoms complicit in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. “No one seriously wants to financially cripple our telecommunications industry,” Dodd said in remarks before the Senate last night. “The point is to bring checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment. It’s much more troubling, though, that our director of National Intelligence even bothers to speak to ‘liability protection for private-sector entities.’ This isn’t the Secretary of Commerce we’re talking about, but the head of our nation’s intelligence efforts. For that matter, how does that even begin to be relevant to letting this case go forward? Since when did we throw entire suits out because the defendant stood to lose too much? It astounds me that some can speak in the same breath about national security and bottom lines. Approve immunity, and Congress will state clearly: The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more lawless you are entitled to be. A suit against you is a danger to the Republic! And so, at the rock-bottom of its justifications, the telecoms’ advocates are essentially arguing that immunity can be bought.”

And, according to MAPlight’s analysis of PAC campaign contributions from Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T) and Sprint (S), it can.

To prevail, Dodd’s filibuster must be supported by 41 of the 100 senators. If its opponents can muster 60 votes–a distinct possibility given the number of Democrat’s who’ve compromised with the Republican White House on this issue–it will fail. And the 40 or so lawsuits over civil-liberties violations arising from the Bush administration’s controversial domestic wiretap program will be dismissed.

Sure It's Not Called the Domestic Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:47:12 +0000

What was it Thomas Jefferson once said: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.” Whatever it was, it bears repeating today in light of the astonishing amendments made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 this week.

U.S. House and Senate leaders agreed yesterday to extend the Bush administration’s controversial wiretap program through at least 2012 and grant immunity to the telcos that participated in its warrantless domestic surveillance operation. Great news for AT&T (T) and other companies facing some 40 lawsuits over civil liberties violations arising from the program. Lousy news for those who filed them. “The lawsuits will be dismissed, and we feel comfortable that the standard of evidence that the law requires will be easily met,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., bluntly.

Comfortable that the standard of evidence the law requires will be met? How could you not be? The law allows the government to conduct “emergency wiretaps” without court orders on U.S. citizens for up to a week if the information is sensitive and the director of national intelligence fears it might be lost by seeking proper authorization.

Shades of J. Edgar Hoover, no? Said Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), co-chair of the House’s Progressive Caucus, “This bill scares me to death.“