Legal

NSA Releases Incriminating Documents

NSA Releases Incriminating Documents

12/27/2014 | By: Preston Hood | 1 Comment

On Christmas Eve the National Security Agency (NSA) released forty-eight PDF documents on their website that proves that they illegally spied on Americans. These documents were heavily redacted prior to release yet they still reveal the NSA’s wrongdoing. Four of the PDF documents are annual reports and the other forty-four are quarterly reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB). The forty-four quarterly reports were submitted from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013 and the four annual reports are consolidations of the relevant quarterly reports. The release of these documents was a response to an
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, Legal, and Preston Hood.
Tags: NSA.
Silk Road 2.0 Taken Down By United States Authorities

Silk Road 2.0 Taken Down By United States Authorities

11/17/2014 | By: Preston Hood | 1 Comment

On 11/4/14 U.S authorities including the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) along with European law enforcement agencies announced that they have taken down Silk Road 2.0 [silkroad6ownowfk.onion], which is the successor website to the original Silk Road. Blake Benthall was the owner of Silk Road 2.0; he was arrested on 11/5/14 in San Francisco and the charges that were brought up against him carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. While I do not totally disagree with what law officials did here I do disagree with the actions
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, Legal, and Preston Hood.
Tags: Anonymous Marketplace, Anonymous Marketplaces, Blake Benthall, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS, European Law Enforcement, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Silk Road, and Silk Road 2.0.

2703(d) Orders

10/20/2014 | By: Preston Hood | No Comments

This is my first article that deals with the legal side of things in the IT security world. To start off I would first like to state that I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and I am certainly not the US governments’ lawyer. With that said some of the research that I do before I write articles like this one contain a lot of legal documentation that, in some ways, is a bit confusing to me. If a lawyer or someone who happens to have a lot of knowledge in law happens to be reading this
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Categories: Information Technology, Legal, and Preston Hood.
Tags: 2703(d), 2703(d) Orders, Court Order, Court Orders, Jacob Appelbaum, and Law.

Governments, Mass surveillance, and Terrorism

09/11/2014 | By: Preston Hood | No Comments

When people talk about governments, mass surveillance, and terrorism there are always complications mainly because the topics do not go together. Governments are always trying to stop the terrorists, in doing so, they perform mass surveillance. Once the people find out that the governments have been spying on their every move they get angry at the governments. The reality of the situation is that there needs to be more balance, cooperation, and communication between the governments, government agencies, and the people. This is a difficult problem to solve.   Governments Before I start talking about governments let me first say
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, Legal, Preston Hood, and Social Issues.
Tags: 9/11, Governments, Mass Surveillance, Mexican Drug Cartels, PSTN, public switched telephone network, Surveillance, Targeted Surveillance, and Terrorism.