The Balkan Chronicle

Surveillance Company Says It Sent Fake iTunes, Flash Updates.

Gamma International UK Ltd. touts its ability to send a “fake iTunes update” that can infect computers with surveillance software, according to one of the company’s marketing videos.

The Wall Street Journal unveiled on Saturday the “Surveillance Catalog” – an online database containing highlights from surveillance industry marketing documents. The documents show dozens of companies making and selling everything from “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country to “hacking” tools that allow governments to break into people’s computers.

Mossad's Miracle Weapon: Stuxnet Virus Opens New Era of Cyber War

The Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, attacked the Iranian nuclear program with a highly sophisticated computer virus called Stuxnet. The first digital weapon of geopolitical importance, it could change the way wars are fought -- and it will not be the last attack of its kind.

The complex on a hill near an interchange on the highway from Tel Aviv to Haifa is known in Israel simply as "The Hill." The site, as big as several soccer fields, is sealed off from the outside world with high walls and barbed wire -- a modern fortress that symbolizes Israel's fight for survival in the Middle East. As the headquarters of Israel's foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, this fortress is strictly off-limits to politicians and journalists alike. Ordinarily, it is the Mossad that makes house calls, and not the other way around.

NIS admits to packet tapping Gmail

If proven, international fallout could occur over insecurity of the HTTP Secure system

It has come to light that the National Intelligence Service has been using a technique known as “packet tapping” to spy on emails sent and received using Gmail, Google’s email service. This is expected to have a significant impact, as it proves that not even Gmail, previously a popular “cyber safe haven” because of its reputation for high levels of security, is safe from tapping.

'Naked' body scanners a failure, police union says

One of Germany's police unions is calling for the controversial "naked scanners" at airports to be abandoned after a trial at Hamburg showed an unacceptably high rate of false alarms

The head of the Gewerkschaft der Polizei (GdP) police union, Bernhard Witthaut, told the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Monday that the two full body scanners had proved a failure.

Yahoo Sells All Its Users Private Email Contents to U.S. Agencies for Small Price

After earlier reports this week that Yahoo had blocked an FOIA Freedom of Information release of its ""law enforcement and intelligence price list"", someone helpfully provided a copy of the Yahoo company's spying guide to the whistleblower web site Cryptome.org.

Apple Warns iOS Users Not to Download PDFs

Last week Germany's Federal Office for Information Security issued a warning claiming that a security hole in several versions of iOS leaves users vulnerable to malicious code contained in infected PDF files.

The exploit, originally uncovered by a team of hackers at JailbreakMe.com, grants the hacker administration privileges over Apple's devices, giving access to passwords, banking information, email, contact information and even allows for telephone conversation interception... all of which is undetected by the user. So far, the only available patch released to resolve the issue is for jailbroken Apple devices. And so far, there have been no reports of hackers actually taking advantage of this newly-discovered exploit.

Hackers attack site of Catholic youth celebrations

Hackers temporarily blocked the official World Youth Day site Thursday just as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Madrid to preside over the festivities, a spokeswoman for the event said.

The site (www.madrid11.com) was taken down for about an hour at around midday (1000 GMT) and the event's computer experts were trying to determine the source of the attack, the spokeswoman said.

Secret U.S. internet effort aims to help dissidents

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to establish "shadow" Internet and cellphone systems to help dissidents undermine authoritarian governments, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The effort has quickened since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government shut down the country's Internet in the last days of his rule, said the Times report, which cited planning documents, classified diplomatic cables and sources.

Google Admits Handing over European User Data to US Intelligence Agencies

Google has admitted complying with requests from US intelligence agencies for data stored in its European data centers, most likely in violation of European Union data protection laws.

Gordon Frazer, Microsoft UK's managing director, made news headlines some weeks ago when he admitted that Microsoft can be compelled to share data with the US government regardless of where it is hosted in the world.

New Facebook tool raises privacy concerns

Facebook users will soon no longer need to identify their friends in photographs – the website will do it for them.

In an announcement Tuesday, representatives of Facebook said they would be introducing a new facial recognition technology for the picture tagging process. The technology – which piloted last year to a trial audience – will operate by recognizing faces from a database of all 500 million Facebook users. Google halted release of a similar program, citing privacy issues associated with the software.