edward snowden

Edward Snowden, the former contractor for the National Security Agency who leaked classified documents regarding the agency's surveillance program, has apparently broken his silence for the first time since fleeing Hong Kong for Moscow eight days ago.

In a letter addressed to the Ecuadorian government, Snowden thanked Ecuador for helping arrange passage to Russia and said he remained committed to publishing information about the NSA's PRISM data collection program. Snowden, 30, has been charged by the U.S. government with espionage, theft, and conversion of government property. He has reportedly applied for asylum in Russia.

"I remain … Read more

Secret documents describing the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus have highlighted vulnerabilities in outdated Web encryption used by Facebook and a handful of other U.S. companies.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirm that the NSA taps into fiber optic cables "upstream" from Internet companies and vacuums up e-mail and other data that "flows past" -- a security vulnerability that "https" Web encryption is intended to guard against.

But Facebook and a few other companies still rely on an encryption technique viewed as many years out of date, which cryptographers … Read more

The so-called father of the World Wide Web wants to protect his child from governments and corporations.

Tim Berners-Lee was in the U.K. on Tuesday and was one of several people to receive the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. At the event, the inventor of the Web was asked about the allegations made by Edward Snowden that governments are using the Web to tap into the communications of private citizens, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

In response, Berners-Lee said: "The original design of the Web of 24 years ago was for a universal space, we didn't have a … Read more

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange said Monday that Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor sought by the U.S. government, is "healthy and safe."

But Assange, in a conference call with reporters this morning, would not divulge Snowden's specific whereabouts, or even which country he might be in by now.

Last Friday, the U.S. government unsealed an indictment against Snowden, who has made international headlines over the last few weeks thanks to disclosures about classified NSA surveillance programs that he made through the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.

"Edward Snowden is not a traitor,&… Read more

Several stories involving whistle-blower/espionage suspect Edward Snowden cropped up over the weekend, including word of a U.S. demand for his extradition and that he flew to Moscow Sunday, and is likely heading for another destination. And news of a Justice Department search of a former WikiLeaks volunteer's Gmail account has also surfaced. Here's a quick summary:

Snowden was allowed to leave Hong Kong because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law. He landed in Moscow early Sunday morning, but his final destination is unclear. According to a report in the New York Times, … 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

North Korea has pounced on the recent revelations of NSA snooping to take a few digs at the United States.

Minju Joson, the country's state-run newspaper, lashed out at the U.S. in the wake of leaks from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that the NSA has been collecting data on U.S. citizens under a secret program known as PRISM. Snowden also said last week that the U.S. has been hacking into computers in China and Hong Kong for the past several years.

A commentary in Minju Joson called the U.S. "a kingpin of human rights abuses … Read more

Edward Snowden, who became famous for leaking top-secret U.S. government documents, said today that the National Security Agency can get a look at information from Americans' domestic phone calls without a warrant.

In an online discussion organized by the Guardian newspaper this morning, the 29-year-old former intelligence analyst said, when it comes to the contents of e-mail and phone calls, "Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant."

Intelligence analysts at the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other similar arms of the … Read more