Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Dropped FromCybersecurity Bill

Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Dropped From Cybersecurity Bill Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Wednesday, February 15, 2012 But White House still claims power to intervene in world wide web The much feared Obama Internet ‘kill switch’ has been dropped from the latest incarnation of the cybersecurity bill which was introduced yesterday, but the White House still claims that it can intervene in the world wide web under the 1934 law that created the Federal Communications Commission.

“Public apprehension about the possibility of handing the White House a “kill switch” for the Internet has dogged the cybersecurity debate, fueled by a proposal that would have codified emergency powers for the president in the event of a catastrophic attack,” 1. reports the Hill.

Indeed, cybersecurity advocate Joe Lieberman ominously pushed for the ‘kill switch’ provision to be included in the bill by citing the Chinese system of Internet policing as a model to which the United States should aspire.As we have documented, China routinely censors the Internet and cuts off access in order to hide evidence of government corruption and to cover up atrocities committed by the state.

Although language allowing the President to flip a figurative kill switch to shut down parts of the Internet is gone, the White House still claims that it already retains such powers under the law that created the Federal Communications Commission in 1934. This law states that if a “state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency” exists, the president may “authorize the use or control of any…station or device.”

Despite the more controversial aspects having disappeared from the bill, it still contains plenty of provisions that represent a sweeping power grab on behalf of the federal government.

One such provision would empower the Department of Homeland Security to conduct “risk assessments” of private companies in certain sectors and force them to comply with expensive mandates to secure their systems.

Despite the Internet kill switch provision being dropped from the bill, the web as a whole still faces innumerable threats to the anonymity, privacy and freedom of speech of those who use it.

Despite the recent defeat of SOPA and PIPA, protests over governments signing up for ACTA, a global treaty that grants copyright holders sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim, have swept Europe.

What If Someone Could See Everything You’ve Ever Googled? strong> 1. Inalienably Yours Wednesday, February 15, 2012 What if there was a little box that could be placed in your home that could….. …. track every Google search that you ran? …. see who you email? …. see from whom you receive emails? …. watch your keystrokes to learn all your passwords? …. turn on a camera and watch you at any given time? …. gather information about your likes, dislikes, political affiliations and religious beliefs?

…. dispense all of the above personal data to fusion centers, whose only purpose is to put together profiles of you and your family?

As it turns out, there is such a box, and if you are reading this, you’re on it right now. You not only voluntarily brought this device into your home, you paid good money for it. Your computer is spying on you.

The home computer is bar none the greatest information sharing device ever created. We can study anything our little hearts desire. We can meet other people anywhere on the globe who have similar interests to us. We can be kept constantly up to date with news, communication with friends and family and updates to our inboxes about myriad topics.

Unfortunately there is a dark side to having a home computer. A home computer means that someone else could have constant access to US. Here are just a few little tricks that your computer may be up to, unbeknownst to you.

GOOGLE: Google has the best reputation in the world as a search engine extraordinaire. But the times are changing and Google is becoming less and less trustworthy.

First there is the Gmail scandal. If you are a user of the free email service, you may have noticed that the ads running down the side of the homepage seem uniquely targeted to your current interests. That is precisely because they ARE – Gmail scans every single email sent, gleaning information for “advertisers”. That’s right, every single email you send through Gmail is read.

Apparently it is read by a computer, but the point is, your emails are not private. Password, smassword.

Next there is the issue of censored searches. Unless you specifically use keywords that will hook you up with alternative news sources, Google searches are now directing you towards the most politically correct answers. Gone are the days when you can simply type in, for example, 9/11, and find information that is provided based on ratings – now you actually need to already have the source that you want the information from to get a clear picture…for example, “Infowars 9/11. Some websites, like Infowars,

are no longer coming up in Google searches unless you include them in your search terms. At the end of 2010, Google blacklisted Infowars and Prison Planet from it’s search aggregates, despite the fact that those sites get more hits than many mainstream media sites that show up front and center.

Finally, let’s talk about Google’s new “privacy policy.” As it turns out, that policy isn’t keeping very much private at all. As of March 1, in an effort to its ads to the tastes of individual consumers, Google will integrate information from all of it’s services, including the search engine itself, Youtube and the aforementioned Gmail. Google refers to this as a “more intuitive Google experience.” Unfortunately for users who prefer more privacy, there is no option to “opt out” of this information gathering and sharing. Check out THIS ARTICLE that recently appeared in The Washington Post for more information on the new lack-of-privacy policy.

YAHOO Not to be outdone, Yahoo also “analyzes” the content of your emails. And according to their guide for compliance with law enforcement officers, Yahoo hangs on to your information for far longer than the privacy policy states they will. Here are some alarming statistics, directly from Yahoo, wrapped up in a menu-priced 17 PAGE GUIDE ~ All IP addresses that you use to log into your Yahoo mail account are retained for one year, giving an excellent way to track your movements, find your workplace, or see who you visit. ~ Instant messages and chats are logged for a minimum of 60 days. ~ The information provided to law enforcement agencies is not a matter of civic duty – the major communications companies all have “price lists”. The US Marshall Service admitted to having PRICE LISTS FOR DATA INTERCEPTION SERVICES from Yahoo, Verizon, Cox Communications, and ComCast.

FACEBOOK Over half a billion people worldwide voluntarily provide information about their personal lives, their friends, their families, their religious beliefs and their political agendas on Facebook.

Nowhere can be found a bigger fountain of personal information. As a way to increase the information Facebook learns about it’s users, when a person is logged into Facebook on a computer, a cookie tracks all other sites visited on that same

computer. If you are logged into Facebook, the door to your home computer usage is wide open.

Facebook uses facial recognition technology to “tag” people in photographs. Facebook is also like the evil town gossips, making assumptions about you based on who your friends are. Ads that are targeted to your “friends” can also make it onto your own page. Facebook figures you’ll have the same interests.

Facebook uses GPS technology to post the location where photographs have been taken and/or uploaded, making even your physical location public information.

Skype Purchased in May of 2011 by MICROSOFT, Skype is the world’s #1 provider of VoIP services.

Two years before making the purchase Microsoft began efforts to patent technology to intercept VoIP calls.

The information can be used in many ways. Criminally speaking, credit card numbers, social security numbers or other personally identifying information can be easily procured. Information and keywords gathered from phone calls can be used in legal proceedings. Data-mining techniques can be used to gear advertisments and marketing based on conversations that you think are private.

Even more alarming is the fact that once Skype is downloaded on your computer, it is possible to turn on your webcam from a remote location. That’s right. You might be sitting there reading the latest blog from your favorite afghan-knitting granny and somebody, somewhere, might be looking back at you.

You owe it to yourself and your personal security to learn as much as you can about how your computer, your home and even your thoughts, if you are careless enough to type them in somewhere, can be accessed.

FUSION CENTERS Finally, know that fusion centers really do exist and they are the final clearinghouse for all of this information. Sometimes loosely cloaked as “marketing research” facilities, they have systems for corralling the information gleaned from your computer usage that will provide a very complete profile of you. That profile may contain information about your relationships, your sexual orientation and fantasies, your political ideologies, your religious beliefs, your family, your friends, your bank accounts, where your money comes from, photo recognition profiles….absolutely everything there is to know about you.

The fusion centers are the real threat – if personal freedoms continue to erode at the current rate, you may one day be deemed an enemy of the state based on your Facebook status updates.

Information compiled there could, potentially, make you a target of the government.

Personally, I have no intention of ceasing my usage of the internet. The internet and the continuous access to knowledge make this a great time to be alive. I will continue to do my research, I’ll continue to share my opinions and information. But I will do these things knowing that nothing is private anymore.

Big Brother is not just watching – he’s making a scrapbook.

Google as Benevolent Dictator Yanks Apps Jordan Robertson 1. Bloomberg.com February 15, 2012 Finnish developer Janne Kytomaki said he knew something was amiss last year when he noticed dozens of best-selling applications on 1. Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android Market listing the same incorrect author.

Kytomaki ran tests, identified the mislabeled software as a fast-moving attack and published the findings online.

Google responded swiftly. It yanked the apps from the marketplace and, using a little-known tactic to keep the malware from spreading, flipped a kill switch that reached into more than 250,000 infected Android smartphones and removed all vestiges of the software.

“I was positively surprised by how fast Google got the apps removed from the market and how fast they were able to roll out a tool for removing the malware,” Kytomaki said.

Google, Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) have with little fanfare embraced technology that lets technicians instantly and remotely purge unauthorized content from users’ machines. So- called kill switches are standard on Android handsets and iPhones, the smartphone leaders. The capability will soon become more widespread with the release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 software for tablets and computers.

While their stated use is for the removal of harmful content, there’s no standard definition of what that means, and companies aren’t required to disclose when and how the tools are employed.

The technology could be harnessed by a hacker to unleash a virus, a company to pry into a user’s private information or a government body to repress free

speech, said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University’s law school.

‘Dictator-PhilosopherKing’ “We have the benevolent dictator, philosopher-king type of model,” Goldman said. “You have someone who has absolute control over my hard drive in ways I may have never anticipated or consented to. If they use that power wisely, they actually make my life better. We don’t know if they use the power wisely. In fact, we may never know when they use their power at all.”

Kill switches are technologically unsophisticated administrative programs that run silently in the background. They have long existed in controlled networks, like at work, where technical staff has power over every machine. They haven’t been widely used on personal computers, whose users are online sporadically and inconsistently update security patches -- a failure that has fostered the spread of malware such as the Conficker worm, which has infected millions of Windows machines.

Smartphone users, on the other hand, are online all the time and must download applications from tightly controlled stores. By design, mobile software gives computer companies a second chance on security, said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of Lookout Inc., a San Francisco security firm for smartphones.

‘Overcorrection’ “The remote-removal tools are very much a response to the mistakes of the PC era,” Mahaffey said. “Whether or not it’s an overcorrection, I think history will tell us. It can be done right, but we as an industry need to tread carefully. It’s easy to imagine several dystopian futures that can arise from this.”

One concern is that Google, Microsoft and others could face external pressure to engage kill switches.

Governments are getting increasingly aggressive in demanding help from technology companies in censoring e-mail and the Internet, as BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) learned in 2010 when India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pressured it to open customer communications to inspection.

“If you build a control into a device that the manufacturer and carrier can control, it will

be used by governments,” said Chris Wysopal, co-founder of Veracode Inc., a security firm in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Benefits, Drawbacks Hackers are also getting more sophisticated at infiltrating protected networks, and privacy breaches are more common as personal data becomes the coin of the Internet realm. A kill switch feature carries clear benefits, and potentially dangerous drawbacks, Wysopal said.

“It can really be used to add security, but it can also be used to deny people their rights to communicate,” he said. “This is a place where there’s no clear doctrine. We haven’t heard anything clearly come out from an Apple or a Google saying, ‘Here’s when we’ll use our kill switch and when we won’t.’”

Representatives of Mountain View, California-based Google and Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, said they have used kill switches a handful of times, though they declined to provide specifics.

Tricking ‘Twilight’ Fans The kill switch is reserved for “really egregious, really obvious cases” of harmful content, said Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s vice president of Android engineering.

“We’ve always viewed remote removal as the final option,” he said. “It’s not something we want to use.”

One instance came after Jon Oberheide, a 28-year-old security researcher from Ann Arbor, Michigan, duped fans of the “Twilight” teen vampire movies. Oberheide uploaded a fake app on the Android Market and billed it as a preview of the latest film in the series. The software was empty, except for a single screen shot.

Still, the app, which had been downloaded 200 times, provided an entrée that might have let Oberheide introduce malware onto devices. It also helped Oberheide goad Google into using its kill-switch option.

“It finally happened,” Oberheide said.

Google, taking a lesson from PC industry bouts with malware, has built in more aggressive protections since the first versions of Android, which began appearing in phones in 2008.

Google’s partners have sold more than 250 million Android devices, while Apple has sold more than 180 million iPhones.

Hacking Risk Security experts said users would be at risk if hackers were able to hijack the mechanism Google uses to push software to the devices. Lockheimer said Google takes security of the mechanism seriously and has built-in protections.

Microsoft, which enabled the feature in Windows smartphones several years ago, said its takedowns have not involved malware. The violations concerned “technical issues and content issues,” said Todd Biggs, a director of product management at Microsoft.

“Revocation is a last resort, and it’s uncommon,” Biggs said. “We take that as a signpost that we’re on target toward our goal, which is safe, reliable apps for consumers.”

Microsoft disclosed last year that it was adding a kill switch to desktop and laptop software. It did so by posting the terms of use for an application store, a new feature for Windows 8.

Amazon’s ‘1984’ Moment RIM’s licensing documents for vendors say that RIM reserves the right to remove applications from users’ devices “for any reason whatsoever.” Marisa Conway, a spokeswoman for Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, declined to comment.

Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, also declined to comment.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s deceased co-founder, confirmed the existence of a kill switch in a 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal. Jobs said it would be “irresponsible” for Apple not to have a way to protect users from malicious applications. The comment appeared at the bottom of a story about iPhone app sales, in response to research that uncovered clues that such a feature existed on Apple devices.

The incident that encapsulates the danger of using a kill switch is Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)’s use of the feature to delete some copies of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” novels from Kindle devices in 2009 after discovering a publisher had sold them without the necessary rights.

‘Stupid, Thoughtless, Out of Line’ Customers were infuriated, and CEO Jeff Bezos called it “stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles.” The company vowed it would never delete books from Kindles again.

Amazon representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment.

While the emergence of kill switches shows the growing control that technology companies have assumed over users’ devices, it also exposes the shortcomings of other methods of keeping users’ computers clean.

Stephanie Stambaugh, a 47-year-old freelance writer from Denver, has been battling a so-called botnet infection on her home PCs since December. Her Internet provider, Comcast Corp.

(CMCSA), alerted her to the infection, a type of program where a machine is controlled without the user’s consent that is becoming more common. She said that while she has run a dozen different antivirus and other cleanup programs, she is still getting alerts that her machine is infected.

Giving Up Privacy Stambaugh said she can’t afford the $130 virus cleanup service that Comcast offers, and is considering reinstalling her operating software, the nuclear option of virus cleanups.

Cable-network operators such as Comcast have insight into which computers are compromised, since they can see when machines are silently reaching out to malicious sites. Yet they don’t have the same capabilities as companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple. Aside from alerting customers, they are limited to quarantining poisoned computers, or restricting the amount of bandwidth they consume.

Cathy Avgiris, a senior vice president for Philadelphia- based Comcast, said fully cleaning an infection is tedious, imprecise work, since the most harmful programs are good at hiding themselves. She said Comcast would be leery of adopting a kill-switch function for that reason.

Even some security experts who see the value of a kill switch say its advantages don’t outweigh the potential risks.

“For most users, the ability to remotely remove apps is a good thing,” said Charlie Miller, a hacker of Apple products and a researcher at the security firm Accuvant Inc. However, “I don’t really like Google or anybody else with the ability to tell me what apps I can run or can’t run and to remotely manage my devices. For me, the added payoff of security doesn’t make up for the control and privacy you give up.”