wiretapping

Playing with sound files is something not all of us aspire to do in any greater detail than clicking "Buy Now" in iTunes. But this is one of those cool Mac niches that is filled with possibilities you might not have thought about before.

For instance, have you ever wished you could easily record a phone call for a job interview? How about automatically record your favorite radio program from the Internet, even if it's on in the middle of the night? Ambrosia Software's WireTap Studio, recently updated to version 1.0.8, is an inexpensive … Read more

A secret federal appeals court has ruled that federal agencies can be authorized to conduct warrantless e-mail and telephone surveillance without violating the U.S. Constitution.

In a 29-page redacted opinion (PDF) released Thursday, the court ruled that presidents do not need to obtain warrants to conduct "foreign intelligence for national-security purposes"--which is effectively at least a partial endorsement of President Bush's views on expansive executive powers.

The central question in this case was how the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applies to intelligence agencies wishing to compel AT&… Read more

Rana and CMC join the show for a "what's up" with iPhone apps and a warm farewell to the last dick. Is Steve Jobs alive? Will New Yorkers pay tax on their iPods? Will Guitar Hero ever add death metal tracks? All these answers and more on The 404. Did we mention that we've got two flesh and blood females on the show? Make sure to stick around until the end of the episode when we find out that Rana has a secret celebrity crush...

On today's show, Brian Cooley announces that he's made the switch...I mean, the big switch. He bought an iPhone. The world briefly stopped rotating, and when it resumed, we laid down the smack on poor Jerry Yang, the Justice Department, the XM-Sirius merger, and subsequent channel flipping, and some poor guy who thought it was a good idea to call our show. Good times!

Yahoo's Jerry Yang to step down, as a search for new CEO commences http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081117/yahoos-jerry-yang-to-step-down-as-a-search-for-new-ceo-commences/ Jerry Yang's entire memo … Read more

An internal review by University of Colorado officials has found that a controversial research project conducted by a team of computer scientists did not constitute research misconduct. University lawyers have also stated their belief that the team probably did not violate US wiretapping laws.

As I reported in a blog post yesterday, a team of researchers from both the University of Colorado and University of Washington recently presented a controversial study in which they recorded a limited portion of the communications of users of Tor -- a popular anonymizing proxy network.

According to a written statement posted by the research team, … Read more

A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for a research project in which they snooped on users of the Tor anonymous proxy network. Should federal prosecutors take interest in the project, the researchers could also face up to 5 years in jail for violating the Wiretap Act.

The team of two graduate students and three professors neither sought legal review of the project, nor ran it past the Human Subjects Committee at their university, putting them in a particularly dangerous position.

The academic paper, "Shining Light in Dark Places: Understanding the Tor Network&… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Bob Barr hopes his enthusiasm for electronic privacy will boost his Libertarian Party campaign for the White House. Call it a long-shot bid for the geek vote.

Absent Barack Obama and John McCain found in flagrante delicto with, say, Osama bin Laden and a 12-year old, Barr will not be the next president of the United States. But he is polling surprisingly well, with a Zogby poll last week putting him at 6 percent nationally, meaning he could siphon away enough limited-government votes from McCain to affect the November election.

Barr was a GOP member of Congress best known … Read more

The Democratic-controlled Senate handed President Bush a major political victory on Wednesday by voting to derail lawsuits against telecommunications companies that unlawfully opened their networks to the National Security Agency.

Senators voted 69 to 28 for the bill, which would rewrite federal wiretap laws by granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as long as the government claims the request was "lawful" and authorized by the president.

Wednesday's vote followed a last-minute effort by liberal and libertarian activists to convince enough Democrats to kill or modify the bill. DailyKos called the bill "a pardon to Bush"; … Read more

The House of Representatives on Friday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a "compromise" spy law that would shield AT&T and other companies from pending lawsuits accusing them of opening their networks to the government in violation of wiretap laws.

The major sticking point in the contentious rewrite of a 1978 electronic-surveillance law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was whether to grant so-called retroactive legal immunity to telephone companies being sued for their participation in the warrantless surveillance program secretly begun by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks.

Touted by … Read more