Tech News 2Night 188 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight! the DEA's Facebook page impersonation, Twitter sues the U.S. Government, and the Feds hacked Silk Road without a warrant and they say that's okay Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode #188, for Tuesday October 7, 2014 This episode of Tech News 2Night is brought to you by NatureBox. NatureBox ships great-tasting, healthy snacks right to your door. Forget the vending machine, and start snacking smarter with healthy, delicious treats like Santa Fe Corn Sticks! To get your FREE NatureBox sampler box go to naturebox.com/twit. That’s naturebox.com/twit. I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed! Facebook has removed a profile created by A DEA agent that used a woman named Sondra Arquiett's identity including her name and and photos of herself and her family he found on her seized cell phone. The Justice Department is reviewing the incident but initially claimed in a court filing that the federal agent had the right to impersonate this woman online by creating a Facebook page in her name without her knowledge in order to communicate with suspected criminals. Prince first learned her identity had been used in 2010 when a friend found her Facebook page, although she had never set up one. Law enforcement officers had previously arrested Arquiett, alleging she was part of a drug ring. A judge sentenced Arquiett to probation... and while she was awaiting trial, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Timothy Sinnigen created the fake Facebook page using Arquiett’s real name, posted photos from her seized cell phone, and communicated with at least one wanted fugitive. The Justice Department’s top spokesperson, Brian Fallon tells Buzzfeed, “The incident at issue in this case is under review by Justice Department officials.” A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the case, though the site’s “Community Standards” say, “Claiming to be another person, creating a false presence for an organization, or creating multiple accounts undermines community and violates Facebook’s terms.” The spokesman said there is no exception to this policy for law enforcement. Facebook has since taken down the profile. / Poor Shellshock, the vulnerability that's getting blamed for everything. Yesterday, Yahoo told SecurityWeek that servers associated with Yahoo Games had been hacked as a result of the recently disclosed “Shellshock” vulnerability, but the company now says that wasn't what happened, rather a “minor bug in a parsing script”. Either way, Yahoo claims that no evidence has been found suggesting that user information was affected by the incident. Yahoo! Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos explained in a post on Hacker News “As you can imagine this episode caused some confusion in our team, since the servers in question had been successfully patched (twice!!) immediately after the Bash issue became public. Once we ensured that the impacted servers were isolated from the network, we conducted a comprehensive trace of the attack code through our entire stack which revealed the root cause: not Shellshock. Let this be a lesson to defenders and attackers alike: just because exploit code works doesn’t mean it triggered the bug you expected!" / Today, Twitter sued the U.S. government, alleging that the Justice Department’s restrictions on what the company can say publicly about the government’s national security requests for user data violate Twitter's First Amendment rights. This is the next step for Twitter in reaching some sort of an agreement with the government on what level of disclosure is allowed about the scale of government surveillance. Currently, tech companies can report the numbers of requests they receive from the government in broad terms such as 0-999. Twitter wants to able to disclose the exact number of national-security-related orders received, for example, 875, or 10, or zero. Twitter's complaint describes wanting to report data in a way that reflects the “limited scope” of U.S. government surveillance of Twitter accounts, because most Twitter posts are public, and unlike many e-mail providers, it doesn't receive huge numbers of requests. Back in January, the government reached settlements on this issue with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Facebook, who all withdrew legal challenges, but Twitter argued that since it didn't receive the same scale of surveillance requests as those five companies, it shouldn't subject to the same limits. Government lawyers refused to amend the agreement to accommodate Twitter, so in July, Twitter said in a blog post that it was preparing to sue. And it has. / Back to a little more Facebook news. The New York Times reports the company is working on a stand-alone mobile app that allows users to communicate without having to use their real names, citing anonymous sources. The app, which may be released in a matter of weeks, is a departure from Facebook's long-standing approach that a Facebook profile is the way to establish an identity and connect to others in your online and offline social graph. But the company has come around a bit on offering anonymity to users. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would allow developers to incorporate an anonymous log in feature into third-party apps, which would let users try out different apps while limiting what information they handed over. And last week following weeks of protest, Facebook said it would allow members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities to use names which they have adopted, but are not their legal ones, to identify themselves. / And now, a story about Facebook that has very little to do with technology. Some shuttle drivers that drive Facebook employees to and from the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valleyare are seeking representation by the Teamsters union in order to get wage increases and more livable driving schedules. The union wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg last Thursday, asking him to intervene on the drivers’ behalf by pressing Facebook’s shuttle bus contractor to agree to bargain with the union on behalf of the 40 drivers who ferry Facebook employees to work. “While your employees earn extraordinary wages and are able to live and enjoy life in some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the Bay Area, these drivers can’t afford to support a family, send their children to school, or, least of all, afford to even dream of buying a house anywhere near where they work,” the Teamsters official, Rome Aloise, said in the letter. One company official speaking anonymously to the New York Times, said Facebook had signed a contract with the bus company for a certain amount of money, and that it was the bus company that set drivers’ wages and schedules. / Ars Technica reports today that Adobe’s Digital Editions e-book and PDF reader, which is an app used by thousands of libraries to give people access to lending libraries electronically—actively logs and reports every document readers add to their local “library” along with what users do with those files. Then, the logs are transmitted over the Internet in plain text, allowing anyone who can monitor network traffic, like the National Security Agency, or an Internet service providers, or a cable company, or anyone sharing a public Wi-Fi network, to read those logs. The exposure of data was first discovered by Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader, who says he reported the issue to Adobe but received no reply. This afternoon, An Adobe spokesperson told Ars the company is working on an update. / Coming up, first Ello was called the Facebook killer, now which social network will rise to be the Ello killer? And next I'll chat with Andy Greenberg from Wired about how the FBI hacked Silk Road without a warrant [AD] This episode is brought to you by NatureBox. Right now NatureBox is giving you a chance to get a FREE trial box of their most popular snacks. So, drop the candy bar, drop the potato chips – they’re not good for you! Do what I do – get delicious, wholesome snacks at naturebox.com NatureBox has hundreds of delicious snacks. I don’t feel guilty about eating them, because they’re better for me. They’ve got zero artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners, zero grams trans fats and no high fructose corn syrup. You’ll even find snacks with no added sugar and without gluten. So in the afternoon when you’re hungry, do what I do - grab Honey Macadamia Pretzel Pops from NatureBox. Or Garlic Plantains. Or Cranberry Macaroon Granola. So good! And so much better for you than other snack options out there. [[Offer/ Call to Action]] Start your free trial today and get a FREE sampler box at naturebox.com/twit. Stay full. Stay strong. Start snacking smarter. Go to naturebox.com/twit. And we thank Nature Box for their support of Tech News 2Night [Segment #2] Andy Greenberg Senior Writer, Wired and author of the book "This Machine Kills Secrets" - month until the scheduled trial of Ross Ulbricht, alleged creator of Silk Road drug site. Ulbricht’s defense lawyers say U.S. government illegally hacked the site to expose the location of its hidden server. -So the Feds hacked SIlk Road without a search warrant and are they say it is perfectly legal? -How did the FBI find the server? Wasn’t it hidden by Tor? -This case has moved from a case on illegal activities into a civil liberties case -Are they saying that since the server was not in the US a search warrant was not necessary? -How do you see this as playing out? ## Thanks Andy Greenberg, Senior Writer, Wired and author of the book "This Machine Kills Secrets" [Kicker!] Remember Ello? It was a new social network that was supposed to be the new Facebook, and saw a huge amount of signups over the last few weeks. Well Ello hasn't gone anywhere but the fanfare seems to have died down after a lot of usernames were secured. That's not exactly a Facebook killer. So,what WILL kill Facebook? Maybe it's Owdy, a new social network that lets you friend... yourself. The Owdy manifesto reads: "We believe that you care more about defining your friends than reading what they have to share. We believe that statuses, likes, and comments only get in the way of this superficial display of self importance. We believe you'll request an invite just to secure your username in case we end up being the next big thing. We believe your friends will have accounts before you and it will drive you insane. We believe a social network can be a tool for selling our startup at a tidy profit empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate - but a place to claim your username and re-define your friends." Ok, this is a parody social network, a joke.. but Owdy kind of has a point about social network profile username land grabs... what is that all about, anyway? Actual friendships? Yeah, not so much. [good bye] That's it for this edition of Tech News 2Night. Subscribe to this show at Twit.tv/tn2, and write us at tn2@twit.tv Don't miss our morning news program, Tech News Today, tomorrow and every weekday at 10am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. I'm Sarah Lane, thanks for watching.