By Kelly Faircloth 9/27/12 9:45am

DotNuts

Mr. Dotcom. (commons.wikimedia.orgAndreas_Bohnenstengel)

New Zealand PM Personally Apologizes to Kim Dotcom

It seems the government of New Zealand may have gotten more than it bargained for with that bonkers raid on Kim Dotcom’s compound. The whole incident, which should have been a simple wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am extraction and extradition, has metastasized into a endless headache over the most banal of legalities.

For instance: It appears that Mr. Dotcom, despite his legal residency, was unlawfully spied upon by the nation’s Government Communications and Security Bureau. The cops told them it was okay, and rather than doing a little independent verification, they proceeded accordingly.

Consequently, the Prime Minister has personally apologized to Mr. Dotcom. Via Read More

By Steve Huff 9/10/12 1:31pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Hacking can indeed hurt some butt. (Screengrab)

Hacked Apple Device IDs Actually Came From App Developer, not FBI

NBC News is reporting the millions of Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDID) hackers say they snatched from an FBI agent’s laptop actually came from Blue Toad Publishing, a Florida-based app developer. NBC reports that Blue Toad “provides private-label digital edition and app-building services to 6,000 different publishers, and serves 100 million page views each month.”

A researcher named David Schuetz contacted Blue Toad last week with the suggestion the data actually came from them, and the company’s engineers conducted a forensic analysis: Read More

By Steve Huff 9/07/12 4:53pm

Privacy is Dead

Do you always feel like somebody's watching you? (Image via AnonNCarolina2, Twitter)

The FBI’s Billion-Dollar Facial Recognition Project Announced Just in Time For Worldwide Privacy Protests

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun implementing a $1 billion face recognition program that will probably scare everyone outside of law enforcement.  NewScientist reports that the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will lump iris scans, biometrics, DNA and even voice prints into one formidable profiling tool and some states are already using the program in a limited fashion. The whole thing will be in effect across the country in about 2 years. NewScientist addresses the privacy problem: Read More

By Steve Huff 9/04/12 5:33pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

U mad?

FBI Calls Bullshit on Antisec’s Hacked Apple IDs Claim

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a statement regarding Antisec’s claim of having hacked over 12 million unique Apple user IDs from an agent’s laptop: the feds say that’s bullshit.

AllThingsD reports the FBI states that it is “aware of published reports alleging” Agent Christopher Stangl’s laptop was breached “and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed.”

The FBI begs to differ: Read More

By Steve Huff 9/04/12 12:39pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

obamaudid

Was Obama’s iPad User ID Among the 1 Million Leaked by Antisec?

Via Cult of Mac, we’ve learned that President Barack Obama’s iPad UDID (special set of characters unique to each Apple product user) may be among the million UDIDs posted online by Antisec on September 3rd. Cult of Mac refers readers to PasteHTML and a database search result there that appears to support the claim. The device in question is an iPad and is named “hobamain.” Read More

By Steve Huff 9/04/12 2:51am

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Hacking can indeed hurt some butt. (Screengrab)

Anonymous-Associated Antisec Hackers Claim Theft of 1 Million Apple Device IDs From FBI Agent’s Computer

Hackers post their ideas of epic lulz on Pastebin all the time but it appears a late drop on Monday night by AntiSec, an Anonymous-affiliated group of hackers, could be pretty impressive if the claims prove true.

After the usual giddy preamble, Antisec explains in their Pastebin post how they snagged 12 million FBI-related Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs)–though at the moment they claim they’ve only posted 1 million: Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 8/08/12 10:25am

SOPA Opera

Someone called the cops. (Screencap)

Video Demonstrates How Bonkers the Raid on Kim Dotcom’s Mansion Really Was

No wonder Kim Dotcom spends so much time taunting the authorities from his Twitter account. A New Zealand news outfit has released the first footage of the January raid on the Megaupload mogul’s mansion, and sounds like Mr. Dotcom’s dealings with the authorities have been aggravating, to say the least.

The video opens with a helicopter landing and the deployment of the officers participating in the raid. The disgorging of black-clad SWAT-type officers and unfriendly-looking police dogs is pretty much the extent of the spectacle, and there’s no footage from the goings-on inside the house. However, the video also includes radio communications exchanged during the raid, and Channel 3 has spliced that with testimony from Mr. Dotcom himself to create a pretty good play-by-play: Read More

By Steve Huff 7/08/12 12:15am

The Bad Kind of Viral

These guys want to help. Really.

Will Your Internet Die a Horrible Death On Monday?

Will your Internet suddenly vanish on Monday, July 9? Will you click on that new cute kitten video only to see full-blown failure, white noise, an Indian head placard, as the vicious “Alureon/DNSChanger bot” takes its final victims down in a mini-Webageddon? No, probably not.

Yes, as of 12:01 a.m. on July 9 the FBI will remove its phalanx of protective servers that have been keeping still-infected computers safely online. However the panic over the possibility of losing Internet access is probably, at this point, out-of-proportion to the actual level of infection. In the United States the number of still-infected computers runs in the 100s of thousands. Out of hundreds of millions of computers. Think about those odds for a moment–chances are excellent you are not among the infected, the unclean. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 5/14/12 4:44pm

Bitcoin Drama

(Wikimedia Commons)

FBI: That Bitcoin Report Was Authentic, But It Wasn’t Leaked by Us

Last week, Betabeat received an email from an anonymous source claiming to have leaked an internal FBI report about the virtual currency Bitcoin. The report, published April 24, revealed the agency is worried the currency could become a payment method for cyber criminals in the near future, and could be used to fund “illicit groups.” (Wikileaks, anyone?) The FBI also determined the currency to be an “increasingly useful tool for various illegal activities beyond the cyber realm,” and could become attractive to money launderers.

The report, titled “Bitcoin Virtual Currency: Intelligence. Unique Features Present Distinct Challenges for Deterring Illicit Activity,” was the FBI’s first research report on Bitcoin. The report was not classified, but it was marked “for official use only.” Betabeat, Wired, and a number of blogs ran with the story without confirming the report’s authenticity, but today we got a call back from the FBI. “It is legitimate, but it was not leaked by the government,” an FBI representative told Betabeat. Read More