Showing posts with label us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label us. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2016
US government pushed tech firms to hand over source code
US government pushed tech firms to hand over source code
Obtaining a companys source code makes it radically easier to find security flaws and vulnerabilities for surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations.
The US courthouse in Washington DC which houses the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes the governments surveillance operations.
NEW YORK -- The US government has made numerous attempts to obtain source code from tech companies in an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations.
The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. Were not naming the person as they relayed information that is likely classified.
With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing "most of the time."
When asked, a spokesperson for the Justice Dept. acknowledged that the department has demanded source code and private encryption keys before. In a recent filing against Apple, the government cited a 2013 case where it won a court order demanding that Lavabit, an encrypted email provider said to have been used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, must turn over its source code and private keys. The Justice Dept. used that same filing to imply it would, in a similar effort, demand Apples source code and private keys in its ongoing case in an effort to compel the companys help by unlocking an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter.
Asked whether the Justice Dept. would demand source code in the future, the spokesperson declined to comment.
Its not uncommon for tech companies to refer to their source code as the "crown jewel" of their business. The highly sensitive code can reveal future products and services. Source code can also be used to find security vulnerabilities and weaknesses that government agencies could use to conduct surveillance or collect evidence as part of ongoing investigations.
Given to a rival or an unauthorized source, the damage can be incalculable.
We contacted more than a dozen tech companies in the Fortune 500. Unsurprisingly, none would say on the record if they had ever received such a request or demand from the government.
Cisco said in an emailed statement: "We have not and we will not hand over source code to any customers, especially governments."
IBM referred to a 2014 statement saying that the company does not provide "software source code or encryption keys to the NSA or any other government agency for the purpose of accessing client data." A spokesperson confirmed that the statement is still valid, but did not comment further on whether source code had been handed over to a government agency for any other reason.
Microsoft, Juniper Networks, and Seagate declined to comment.
Dell and EMC did not comment at the time of publication. Lenovo, Micron, Oracle, Texas Instruments, and Western Digital did not respond to requests for comment. (If this changes, we will provide updates.)
Apples software chief Craig Federighi said in a sworn court declaration this week alongside the companys latest bid to dismiss the governments claims in the San Bernardino case that Apple has never revealed its source code to any government.
"Apple has also not provided any government with its proprietary iOS source code," wrote Federighi.
"While governmental agencies in various countries, including the United States, perform regulatory reviews of new iPhone releases, all that Apple provides in those circumstances is an unmodified iPhone device," he said.
The declaration was in part to allay fears (and the US governments claims) that it had modified iPhone software to agree to Chinas security checks, which include turning over source code to its inspectors.
But even senior tech executives may not know if their source code or proprietary technology had been turned over to the government, particularly if the order came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
The secretive Washington DC-based court, created in 1979 to oversee the governments surveillance warrants, has authorized more than 99 percent of all surveillance requests. The court has broad-sweeping powers to force companies to turn over customer data via clandestine surveillance programs and authorize US intelligence agencies to record an entire foreign countrys phone calls, as well as conduct tailored hacking operations on high-value targets.
FISA orders are generally served to a companys general counsel, or a "custodian of records" within the legal department. (Smaller companies that cant afford their own legal departments often outsource their compliance to third-party companies.) These orders are understood to be typically for records or customer data.
These orders are so highly classified that simply acknowledging an orders existence is illegal, even a companys chief executive or members of the board may not be told. Only those who are necessary to execute the order would know, and would be subject to the same secrecy provisions.
Given that Federighi heads the division, it would be almost impossible to keep from him the existence of a FISA order demanding the companys source code.
It would not be the first time that the US government has reportedly used proprietary code and technology from American companies to further its surveillance efforts.
Top secret NSA documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reported in German magazine Der Spiegel in late-2013, have suggested some hardware and software makers were compelled to hand over source code to assist in government surveillance.
The NSAs catalog of implants and software backdoors suggest that some companies, including Dell, Huawei, and Juniper -- which was publicly linked to an "unauthorized" backdoor -- had their servers and firewall products targeted and attacked through various exploits. Other exploits were able to infiltrate firmware of hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, and Samsung.
Last year, antivirus maker and security firm Kaspersky later found evidence that the NSA had obtained source code from a number of prominent hard drive makers -- a claim the NSA denied -- to quietly install software used to eavesdrop on the majority of the worlds computers.
"There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information," said one of the researchers.
Available link for download
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x86 en US Pre Activated Sep2013 with latest Software Only by THE RAIN HKRG
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x86 en US Pre Activated Sep2013 with latest Software Only by THE RAIN HKRG
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (32 bit)
----|Info|---------------------------------------------------------------
Detail
OS :- Windows 7 Sp1 Ultimate
Language :- English (United State)
Release Date :- 20/09/2013
Bit Rate:- 32 Bit /x86
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Software list
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4. Internet download manager 6.17 build 11
5. WinRAR 5
6. google chrome 29.0.1547.76
7. Firefox 24.0
8. Adobe Reader 11.0.0.4
9. Flash player (IE & NonIE)
10.Sun java 7u40-windows-i586
11.VLC 2.0.8
13. Shockwave player
Tool USed .,,,
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RT 7 Lite (32-Bit) to make Autounattend.xml
VmWare and Oracle Virtual box to test OS and take Screen shots
Update List....
Install Notes :-
1. Burn Iso in DVD with any burner or Make Bootable PanDrive/USB
2. then reboot your system
3. then press any key
4. format and Install it
5. AND INJOY :)
Click To Download Torrent
First you Need utorrent
Available link for download
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Toyota launches new AI lab in US calls autonomous cars robots on wheels
Toyota launches new AI lab in US calls autonomous cars robots on wheels
The biggest car company on earth has created a research center devoted to studying artificial intelligence. Heres what you need to know.
Toyota announces partnership with MIT and Stanford University for AI
This January, inside a temporary lab near MIT, and another at Stanford, a team of researchers is assembled to help Toyota develop artificial intelligence. The creation of the Toyota Research Institute, announced in November 2015, is a 5-year, $1 billion investment devoted to AI?focusing on the development of autonomous car technology and personal-assistant robots.
Gill Pratt, director of the Toyota Research Institute, is based at the Cambridge location?a larger-scale, permanent facility is currently under construction. Pratt, a roboticist by training, previously worked as a program manager for DARPA.
Toyota has "aspirations to be a leader in the field," said Pratt. To that end, theyve assembled a team of about two dozen members?while most have experience in computer science and artificial intelligence, others have backgrounds in robotics, cars, or design.
TechRepublic spoke to Pratt about Toyotas plans for the new bi-coastal research lab.
Why MIT?
Since Toyota wants to be a leader in AI, they "wanted to be where the action is," said Pratt. Although the company is based in Japan, it is a global brand, and most of its cars are sold in the US. By putting roots down near MIT, Toyota positioned itself at the center of innovation. "It is, without a doubt, a hotbed of where the kind of work on artificial intelligence, particularly applied to transportation is going on," said Pratt.
Why robots?
Toyota is not the first car company to invest in robots. Many, like Honda, have factory robots. But they are one of the first to invest heavily in home-assistant robots. Its because theyre looking to predict what customers will want over the long-term. "What are the needs that human beings are going to have in the next few years?" asked Pratt. Since Toyota is a Japanese company, and demographics are quickly moving to a large percentage of the population being elderly, creating assistant robots will help the elderly "live a dignified life," said Pratt. "We want to focus on mobility for both people and for goods, indoors as well as outdoors."
Why now? Whats led us to this peak in interest in self-driving cars?
Several factors have come together to make the current environment ripe for developing self-driving cars. According to Pratt, "technology has opened the door to whats possible." Here are five innovations that have contributed:
Mobile phones: The explosive growth of mobile technology, the low-powered computer processors, the computer vision chips and the cameras, and all the things in the phones have become "incredibly inexpensive and ubiquitous."
Wireless internet: The rise of 4G networks and WiFi have made it easier than ever to connect.
Computer centers in cars: Most new cars right today have a back-up cameras, front and back sensors, and other tech that helps drivers detect objects in the environment. Not only do most cars have these, but the cameras themselves have become better as well.
Maps: If youre talking about either the navigation system you have in your car, said Pratt, or Google maps in your phone, maps have become really good.
Deep learning: Computers now have "perception at levels of competence close to what a human being can do," said Pratt. "The car can look out on the world and tell the difference between a bicycle and a person thats walking, and a tree and a parking meter?all of these things, and can classify them either almost as well as we can, or in some cases, even a little bit better."
Toyota is most concerned about keeping safety as a top priority. Pratt believes that this is the greatest challenge in developing the technology. "We need to be making things work at the level of reliability that is required for our cars to travel safely," said Pratt. He thinks that Toyota and other car manufacturers may have a leg up in this department, over tech companies like Apple and Google. Theyre used to designing very strictly for safety.
Although Toyota plans to release their own semi-autonomous car by 2020, considering the challenges to ensuring safety, a fully-autonomous vehicle, Pratt believes, is "actually still years off"?unlike Elon Musk, he doesnt see it happening by 2020.
Available link for download
Thursday, September 29, 2016
US says no to encryption law for now
US says no to encryption law for now
US administration will not seek law to force tech companies to decrypt customer communications, says FBI chief.
The US government has decided not to call for new legislation to force tech companies to decode the encrypted communications of their customers - for now at least.
Police and intelligence agencies have become increasingly concerned about the use of end-to-end encrypted communications services by criminals because it is all but impossible to decode the conversations.
With more traditional methods of communication there is usually a way for the service provider to allow police - with a warrant - access to the data. But end-to-end encryption means the only place the message is unscrambled is on the smartphone itself.
"Changing forms of internet communication and the use of encryption are posing real challenges to the FBIs ability to fulfill its public safety and national security missions. This [is a] real and growing gap," said FBI director James Comey in a written statement to the Senates Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Comey told the committee that terrorists are using social networks to find recruits and then switching to end-to-end encrypted networks to continue their interactions.
"They will move them off of Twitter, where with lawful process we can see the communications, and move them to an end-to-end mobile messaging app which is end-to-end encrypted. So the needle we may have found disappears on us once it becomes most dangerous... we cannot see what is being said between that ISIL recruiter and someone who would kill where they are," he warned.
Comey said the issue with encryption was a clash between the need for safety and security on the internet and public safety. "Those two values we hold dear are crashing into each other. I dont know what the answer is," he said.
The use of strong encryption is also key to banking and ecommerce and critics argue that giving law enforcement a back-door into such systems would undermine the security of everyone.
Privacy campaigners also argue that the use of encrypted communications is a vital lifeline for those living under many regimes around the world: others still argue that revelations such as those by Edward Snowden show that intelligence agencies already have far too much access to the apparently private communications of the public.
Comey said the US government will not call for new laws in this area: "The administration has decided not to seek a legislative remedy now but that it makes sense to continue the conversations we are having that are very productive," he said. According to the Washington Post that decision was made in a cabinet meeting on 1 October.
In contrast, the government in the UK has several times suggested that it wants to pass legislation so that it can gain access to such communications: precisely how it would do that is not clear.
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