The US government has granted tech companies permission to disclose certain information about national security orders, which demand customer information.......

It appears that Edward Snowden used a thumb drive to sneak classified documents from NSA's network out of the office.......

US officials will pursue extradition of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong.......

Microsoft has denied claims that it shares information about vulnerabilities with the US government for use in gaining access to computers being used by terrorist organizations or military adversaries.......

A report from the Office of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general says that the agency does not track the security training of contractors it hires to monitor security issues on government networks.......

Over the past several years, US states began collecting searchable photo ID databases for the purpose of thwarting driver's license fraud, but the information is increasingly being used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, accomplices, and in some cases, just bystanders related to investigations.......

A Swedish court has approved extradition to Denmark for Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, a co-founder of The Pirate Bay who is currently in custody in Sweden awaiting the verdict in a trial in which he was accused of hacking into the computer system of a company that does contract work with the Swedish tax authority.......

BlackBerry has issued an advisory warning of a critical privilege vulnerability in BlackBerry 10 OS.......

Texas Governor Rick Perry has signed House Bill 2268 into law.......

On Tuesday, June 18, Oracle plans to release a Critical Patch Update for Java SE to fix 40 security issues.......

TechCrunch: Android home gaming consoles are nearly arriving for the consumer market, but one at least needs a little more time in the oven to bake.

Contributor Tom Geller writes: "I recently wrote an article about Bitcoin and the law for Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery. In researching it I ran into plenty of wishful thinkers, ridiculous greedheads, and out-and-out nutbags promising a rosy future. I also found the expected blowback from vehement naysayers who think the best way to combat crazy is with more crazy. But despite that, I walked away believing that Bitcoin — or a decentralized cryptocurrency like it (let's call it "Coin") — is here to stay. As an interested outsider to the Coin economy, and a long-time technology commentator, here's what I think its future holds." Read on for Tom's predictions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dart enters beta with beefed up editor, compiler

Hot on the heels of Microsoft's latest TypeScript release, Google has shipped the first beta SDK for Dart, its own JavaScript killer alternative web language, including bug fixes, performance enhancements, and an improved editor.…

msm1267 writes "Business travelers who tether their iPhones as mobile hotspots beware. Researchers at the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in Germany have discovered a weakness in the way iOS generates default passwords for such connections that can leave a user's device vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, information leakage or abuse of the user's Internet connection. Andreas Kurtz, Felix Freiling and Daniel Metz published a paper (PDF) that describes the inner workings of how an attacker can exploit the PSK (pre-shared key) authentication iOS uses to establish a secure WPA2 connection when using the Apple smartphone as a hotspot. The researchers said that attackers would find the least resistance attacking the PSK setup rather than trying their hand at beating the operating system's complex programming layers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

msm1267 writes "Business travelers who tether their iPhones as mobile hotspots beware. Researchers at the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in Germany have discovered a weakness in the way iOS generates default passwords for such connections that can leave a user's device vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, information leakage or abuse of the user's Internet connection. Andreas Kurtz, Felix Freiling and Daniel Metz published a paper (PDF) that describes the inner workings of how an attacker can exploit the PSK (pre-shared key) authentication iOS uses to establish a secure WPA2 connection when using the Apple smartphone as a hotspot. The researchers said that attackers would find the least resistance attacking the PSK setup rather than trying their hand at beating the operating system's complex programming layers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

msm1267 writes "Business travelers who tether their iPhones as mobile hotspots beware. Researchers at the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in Germany have discovered a weakness in the way iOS generates default passwords for such connections that can leave a user's device vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, information leakage or abuse of the user's Internet connection. Andreas Kurtz, Felix Freiling and Daniel Metz published a paper (PDF) that describes the inner workings of how an attacker can exploit the PSK (pre-shared key) authentication iOS uses to establish a secure WPA2 connection when using the Apple smartphone as a hotspot. The researchers said that attackers would find the least resistance attacking the PSK setup rather than trying their hand at beating the operating system's complex programming layers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

msm1267 writes "Business travelers who tether their iPhones as mobile hotspots beware. Researchers at the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in Germany have discovered a weakness in the way iOS generates default passwords for such connections that can leave a user's device vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, information leakage or abuse of the user's Internet connection. Andreas Kurtz, Felix Freiling and Daniel Metz published a paper (PDF) that describes the inner workings of how an attacker can exploit the PSK (pre-shared key) authentication iOS uses to establish a secure WPA2 connection when using the Apple smartphone as a hotspot. The researchers said that attackers would find the least resistance attacking the PSK setup rather than trying their hand at beating the operating system's complex programming layers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Varnish is a program that can greatly speed up a Web site while reducing the load on the Web server. According to Varnish's official site, Varnish is a "Web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy". more>>

I have signed a petition calling on the NSA to "suspend its domestic surveillance program pending public comment." This is what's going on: In a request today to National Security Agency director Keith Alexander and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the group argues that the NSA's recently revealed domestic surveillance program is "unlawful" because the agency neglected to request public comments...

MarkWhittington writes "Politico reports in a June 18, 2013 story that House Republicans have added a Mars base to its demands for a lunar base in the draft 2013 NASA Authorization bill. Both the Bush-era Constellation program and President Obama space plan envisioned eventual human expeditions to Mars. But if Politico is correct, the new bill will be the first time an official piece of legislation will call for permanent habitation of the Red Planet. The actual legislative language states, 'The [NASA] Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.