Banks are having such a rough time these days. If it isn’t customers getting pissed off over being charged to use their bank debit cards it’s those nasty hackers breaking into their computer systems and making off with all kinds of information.

While there isn’t much that will be done about the first problem, after all who gives a crap about customers anyway, it seems that the National Security Agency, which is some super secret arm of the US military, has decided that they are perfectly suited to help those Wall Street banks fight back against those evil hackers.

This is all part of a larger attempt by these incredibly powerful and rich banks to get the US military and private defense contractors to fight off all those horrible cyber criminals out there. Claiming that hackers could possibly take up residence within the computer systems used by banking companies the banks say they could then disable trading systems, create fake crashes which could lead to real ones, and of course the good old stealing of money via huge wire transfers.

At this point the co-operation is still in discussion stages with NSA director Keith Alexander saying that the talks are just about them sharing information with banks about malicious software making the rounds. Additionally the NSA is working with the NASDAQ to improve their defenses against cyber attacks after it was found that their network had been broken into last year.

Apparently also on the list of companies that are supposedly perfect targets for hackers are oil companies, gas companies, technology companies, and defense contracting companies.

via Reuters

NSA getting into bed with Banks to help them fight hackers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Ignoring the obvious question of why the NSA would want to be recruiting our children in the first place one has to wonder who came up with the cutesy idea of a pair of hip cartoon twin leopards in order to teach our kids about proper online hygiene (?).

In time for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month the CyberTwins are all modern with gaming headgear and hands-free mobile devices that they talk into. the back story for this brilliant idea <sarcasm> comes to us via Spencer Ackerman at the Danger Room blog:

Arriving in time for (the second half of) National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the CyberTwins have a backstory to appeal to military kids: their mom is a government engineer; their dad is an Army computer scientist; and they “love to talk with other kids who love computers and cyber space as much as they do.” That fits them right in with the other CryptoKids — a goateed turtle named T-Top whose uncle works for a computer manufacturer, Sergeant Sam the eagle who joined the military out of high school — who guide real-live youth through online crypto-themed puzzles and brainteasers. (Only one thing’s missing from the CryptoTwins’ rollout: cybersecurity tips for the underage.)

Yup, this is a great way to spend taxpayer dollars since the first thing kids will do when they see this is to ROFLTAO.

NSA looking to recruit your kids with cute leopard twins is a post from: The Inquisitr

The news is all over the web today about Google teaming with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in order to figure out how Google was hacked and who was really responsible for the recent dust-up between Google and China.

The back story here is that Google was hacked in December and while the company didn’t come right out and say it in their initial statement the impression they gave was they were blaming China for being behind the attack.

Now we have Google and the NSA joining forces to find out for sure but that has more than a few people concerned about the implication of this little get together. As Noah Shachtman at the Danger Room blog puts in a post

The National Security Agency is widely understood to have the government’s biggest and smartest collection of geeks — the guys that are more skilled at network warfare than just about anyone on the planet. So, in a sense, it’s only natural that Google would turn to the NSA after the company was hit by an ultra-sophisticated hack attack. After all, the military has basically done the same thing, putting the NSA in charge of its new “Cyber Command.” The Department of Homeland Security is leaning heavily on the NSA to secure .gov networks.

But there’s a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. The during war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and Internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught “overcollecting” on U.S. citizens. According to the New York Times, the agency even “tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant.”

I’m sorry but the idea of a company with more data on individuals from around the world getting in bed with an agency known for spying on people and countries as they see fit scared the beejezus out of me.

Doesn’t this idea bother anyone else?

Google & the NSA – Who thinks this is a good idea? is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the areas where this is easily abused is in the ability of government agencies to spy on our daily lives and our communication with others. Whether it be making deals with telecommunication companies like AT&T or place people with opposing political beliefs on watch lists we will find abuses. One such case has come to light and as usual it involves a government agency operating outside of its mandate.

According  to a report coming out of ABC the NSA has been routinely listening in on Americans’ phone calls in Iraq as they call back to the US. The people being targeted include government officials, journalists, aid workers and the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line every day to supposedly keep their country safe. The problem with this is twofold with the first being that the NSA isn’t suppose to listen in on any American in any fashion unless they get clearance from high ranking officials. The second problem is that Congress has continually been reassured that the NSA was not spying on Americans when the opposite seems to be the rule of thumb.

As bad as this is what is even more disgusting is that according the ABC it is a regular thing for NSA monitors to share the more private moments between the Americans they are spying on

 

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

 

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News.

 

I find this kind of thing totally repugnant and as Ryan Singel from the Threat Level blog says in a post about this

If the allegations are true, they show that when the government secretly tossed aside the decades-old credo that the NSA doesn’t spy on Americans, it did not simply make one or two exceptions — it shredded the it.

Yup that good ol’ Patriot Act has done a lot good eh.

Soldier’s Pillow Talk Getting NSA Hot is a post from: The Inquisitr

The lawsuit also includes President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the alleged warrantless domestic surveillance.

According to EFF, the lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, aims at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA.

EFF Sues Bush, Cheney, NSA on Surveillance is a post from: The Inquisitr