Advisory board calls for new limits on NSA surveillance, addresses many major concerns

Advisory board calls for new limits on NSA surveillance, addresses many major concerns


The panel tasked with advising the Obama administration on the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs recommended new limits on the agency’s spying practices, according to reports.

Previously, many were skeptical of the group’s ability to provide sound advice given the history of the participants and their close ties with the Obama administration.

In the over 300-page document containing the panel’s recommendations, many of the major concerns involving NSA activities were addressed.

The panel urged Obama on Wednesday to bring the government’s mass collection of phone call logs to an end, a practice which a federal judge recently ruled to be likely unconstitutional.

Instead, the advisors called on the administration to keep them in private hands “for queries and data mining” by court order only, The New York Times reports.

The panel also recommended a new test to be conducted before operations involving surveillance of foreign leaders are approved.

The test would involve weighing the potential impacts on diplomatic and economic sectors if the operation were to be uncovered, as many recently were.

The decision to monitor communications of foreign leaders should be made by the president himself and his advisers, not the intelligence agencies, according to the panel’s recommendations. However, it was reported previously that the White House knew about the surveillance.

The panel also called for new limits on surveillance of ordinary non-Americans. Recently, it was reported that millions of ordinary British citizens have been spied on by the NSA, something which would be limited if the panel’s recommendations were implemented.

Speaking of the NSA’s efforts to subvert work on secure encryption standards, the panel called on the NSA to make it clear that “it will not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable generally available commercial encryption.”

The panel also touched on the practice of purchasing so-called “zero day” exploits, something which has made the U.S. the world’s largest buyer of malware.

The advisors said the U.S. practice of using the software flaws to launch cyberattacks undermines the public’s confidence in American products and should be discontinued.

The likelihood of the implementation of that recommendation in particular seems quite slim. The New York Times notes that the practice was responsible for getting a hold of zero day exploits that “were critical to the cyberattacks that the United States and Israel launched on Iran in an effort to slow its nuclear program.”

Yet that might not be the only one of the 46 recommendations issued by the five-member panel. Indeed, the recommendations are non-binding and many would require either Congressional legislation or presidential action.

The White House called the report “comprehensive and high quality” in a statement and said their overall review would come to a close “over the next several weeks,” Fox News reports.

“The President will work with his national security team to study the Review Group’s report, and to determine which recommendations we should implement,” the statement said.

Some in Washington have already voiced their support for the report. Many of the long-time critics of the NSA will likely voice similar opinions as well.

“The message to the NSA is now coming from every branch of government and from every corner of our nation: You have gone too far,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

The 2 Easy Ways to Make Your PC Run Like New

One of the most frustrating things in life is a slow computer.  

Every few years, we buy an expensive new PC and love how fast it starts up, runs programs, and loads websites. Inevitably though, it starts to slow down until eventually we are pulling our hair out waiting for it to do routine tasks.

Why is this?  It turns out the answer is actually quite simple and you don't even need to be "technical" to understand the causes and solutions.

The good news: It's not the computer hardware that's the problem. In most cases, the hardware you have is perfectly capable of being restored to its original glory and kept in fast running condition with minimal effort.

Rather, the problem lies with changes that occur to the PC's software.

 The two most common causes of slowdown (along with easy solutions) are:

1. The most common problem: registry errors
Every time you (or your kids) load a program, game, or file, your PC's software registry is updated with new instructions needed to operate that item. However, when the item is removed, these instructions usually remain on your PC. Every time you run your computer it tries to execute these instructions but, because the related program can't be found, it causes a registry error. Your PC is doing a lot more work than it should be, and the result is a significantly slower computer.

One of the best ways to manage this is with a neat little tool from Support.com, a Silicon Valley based company. It's called ARO 2013 and it scans, identifies, and fixes registry errors —resulting in a computer that's a lot more like it was when you first bought it. On top of the amazing results it offers, it's so easy to install and use that it was recently awarded a coveted 4.5 star rating (out of 5) by CNET's editorial staff, and has been downloaded more than 30 million times.

You can now get a free working version of the software, which will quickly scan your entire PC and identify all of the registry errors that may be bogging it down. The free version also scans for junk and checks your PC's baseline security status. It will eliminate the first 50 errors for free, and if you have more errors that you want to clean up or want to set the program to run on a regular basis (which is recommended), you can easily upgrade to the full version for just $29.95.  After that, registry errors will no longer be a problem.

To get the free version, simply click here.

2. Spyware and viruses

Spyware and viruses are software programs that are loaded on your computer without your knowledge or permission. They have various purposes, including:

• Changing the default search engine in your browser
• Tracking your Web surfing habits and showing you targeted advertising
• Using your email program to send out spam to other email addresses
• Stealing your personal information

Most spyware and viruses get onto our computers through files that we download from the Internet or as attachments to emails. They tend to take up a lot of computing power and, as a result, will significantly slow down your computer.

The simple rule of thumb to follow is to never download any free software programs from companies you do not know and trust, especially screensavers, emoticons, and the like. In addition, you should never open any attachment to an email unless you are 100 percent certain you know and trust the sender. Having a good anti-virus/spyware removal software running at all times will also help.

Follow the above advice, and your PC should stay fast and safe.

Stanford researchers conducting study to find out what metadata can show NSA about your personal life

Stanford researchers have launched a crowdsourced study relying on volunteers to hand over their data in an effort to find out how much the National Security Agency (NSA) can learn about their targets just through harvesting metadata.

The NSA has collected metadata on millions of Americans and others around the world. Documents revealed in June of this year that Verizon was ordered to hand over all records for U.S. customers to the NSA. Since then, reports of the NSA’s ability to create complex “pattern of life” profiles for millions of people have also emerged, among many other related reports.

In order to show just how revealing the metadata can be, researchers Jonathan Mayer and Patrick Mutchler created the Android app “MetaPhone.”

The app collects a person’s metadata including call logs and basic data from Facebook accounts in order to build a profile based on data similar to what the NSA gathers.

Mayer points out that some say the NSA program has little impact on privacy and is not really surveillance since it just collects metadata.

“Like many computer scientists, we strongly disagree,” Mayer wrote. “Phone metadata is inherently revealing. We want to rigorously prove it—for the public, for Congress, and for the courts.”

The researchers will gather data from participants’ phones through the app, which will then be analyzed at Stanford University.

“Device data will include records about your recent calls and text messages,” the researchers said, according to WorldNetDaily. “Social network data will include your profile, connections and recent activity. The data will be stored and analyzed at Stanford, then deleted at the end of the study. Research staff will take reasonable precautions to secure the data in transit, storage, analysis, and destruction.”

After just two weeks of conducting the study, the researchers have already shown that they can automatically predict a participant’s relationship status using metadata.

Even though only one in four subjects had their Facebook account configured to display relationship status to a stranger, the researchers still found out about their targets’ relationships.

Their current system, however, has a bit of a tradeoff. If they want to get relatively few singles wrong, they can correctly guess around 60 percent of individuals with significant others. If they accept getting 33 percent of singles wrong, they can get over 80 percent of individuals with significant others right.


“These are, to emphasize, preliminary results. We will have more, better, and higher confidence findings as additional users (like you!) participate,” the researcherswrote, noting that it is just a first step towards confirming just how important metadata is.

Mayer told MIT Technology Review that they believe metadata can reveal a great deal of private information about a person’s personal life.

“Our hypothesis is that phone metadata is packed with meaning,” he said.

MIT Technology Review notes that this research could make waves outside of just debates around policy and legal concerns about domestic surveillance.

They point out that private industry has joined the datamining frenzy, with some telecommunications companies monetizing their own customers’ metadata.

Just how much personal information can be obtained through this type of metadata analysis remains to be seen and the researchers have not revealed how long they will be collecting data.

Yet if what was accomplished after just two weeks is any indicator, they might be able to find out quite a bit indeed.