Technology

Want to play a game of "guess who?"

A newly disclosed top secret document lauds the National Security Agency's "productive" and long-standing surveillance "partnership" with a pair of telecommunications providers -- that permitted tapping into their fiber links -- but without naming names.

This is where things get interesting for clue sleuths.

Even in the top-secret document published by the Guardian today, the firms are described only as "Company A" and "Company B." But the NSA's inspector general did disclose that, at the time the program was being … Read more

Your MacBook could one day save space by combining two ports into one.

"Combined Input Port," an Apple patent application published Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes a way to unite a USB port and a memory card slot into a single unit.

Combining two ports with two different connectors poses a challenge. But the invention envisioned by Apple would vary the depth and position of the respective connectors, allowing for both a USB device and a memory card to be inserted.

As the patent application describes it in technical jargon:

A future version of Apple's iTunes Radio could let you reveal why you liked or disliked a certain song in your playlist.

Published Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an Apple patent application called "Playlist Configuration and Preview," describes some handy ways to customize and manage your playlist of streaming songs.

Most streaming music services let you vote thumb's up or thumb's down on a certain song to gauge your musical tastes. But they don't give you the ability to explain why you voted the way you did.

The service described … Read more

The most secretive court in the nation, which has been criticized for authorizing domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, has taken a tiny step toward openness in lawsuits brought by Google and Microsoft.

CNET has learned that Reggie Walton, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, told the Obama administration last week that -- barring any objections from the government -- he would take the unusual step of disclosing procedural information about the Internet companies' litigation.

The Department of Justice responded yesterday by saying it had no objections. Neither Google nor Microsoft's legal briefs "contain … Read more

Following Google's lead, Microsoft has asked a secretive U.S. surveillance court to lift a gag order prohibiting it from disclosing more information about government requests it receives for customer data.

The software giant cited the First Amendment in its nine-page filing last week with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, arguing that U.S. government restrictions on what it can disclose constitute a "content-based restriction on speech." The filing was made public Wednesday.

Google filed a similar motion with the court last week, arguing that it has "a right under the First Amendment to publish" … Read more

Revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance abilities have highlighted shortcomings in many Internet companies' security practices that can expose users' confidential communications to government eavesdroppers.

Secret government files leaked by Edward Snowden outline a U.S. and U.K. surveillance apparatus that's able to vacuum up domestic and international data flows by the exabyte. One classified document describes "collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past," and another refers to the NSA's network-based surveillance of Microsoft's Hotmail servers.

Most Internet companies, however, do not use an privacy-protective encryption technique … Read more

Your MacBook of the future could offer a dual-sided trackpad panel that features a touch screen on both sides.

Awarded to Apple on Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, a patent appropriatedly dubbed "Dual-sided track pad," describes a transparent and foldable trackpad panel with both a top and bottom display. The panel itself would take up the entire bottom of the notebook. Each side of the panel would recognize touch input and react accordingly based on whether the notebook is open or closed.

On an open notebook, one side of the trackpad would be accessible. … Read more

Accusations of broad government surveillance have traveled across the pond. Britain's intelligence agency has reportedly been collecting and storing vast amounts of data from the world's telephone calls and Internet traffic -- and sharing that information with the National Security Agency.

Britain's Government Communications Headquarters secretly gained access to fiber-optic cables that carry the world's communications, reports the Guardian. The GCHQ taps into huge amounts of data from these cables and stores it for up to 30 days to be looked over by analysts from GCHQ and the NSA.

The Guardian reported Friday that documents shown … Read more

Billions of supposedly private e-mail messages a day flow through unsecured links, where they can be snared in digital dragnets operated by the National Security Agency and other intelligence services.

Recent revelations about NSA surveillance -- including a top-secret document discussing "collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past" -- have highlighted the ease with which government eavesdroppers can exploit the Internet's infrastructure. Another classified document, which the Guardian published Thursday, mentions network-based surveillance of Hotmail servers.

Over the last decade or so, Web mail providers began to turn on encryption to armor the connections … Read more