Tech Giants Urge Senate to Reform NSA Surveillance Powers

Tech giants, including Google, Facebook and Apple, have sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to reform the NSA surveillance programs.

The letter, sent on Thursday to top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, implicitly endorses a specific bill, the USA Freedom Act, which would end the NSA program that collects U.S. phone call records.

Tech companies have been asking for permission to be more transparent in the months following the revelations fueled by Edward Snowden, but this time, they’re taking one extra step.

“Our companies believe that government surveillance practices should also be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms for those programs,” the letter states.

The companies, which also include AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo, “applaud” the sponsors of the USA Freedom Act (.PDF), which would significantly reform the Patriot Act and NSA surveillance powers.

The bipartisan bill, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the principal author of the Patriot Act, was introduced on Monday and lauded by civil liberties groups. The American Civil Liberties Union called it “real spying reform.”

Meanwhile, an opposing bill (.PDF), introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The bill has been introduced to reform the NSA, but it allows the bulk collection of phone records to continue.

For Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a staunch supporter of curtailing NSA surveillance, Feinstein’s bill “would codify overbroad surveillance practices that infringe on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans without making America any safer,” he said in a statement.”

Tech giants seem to have sided with the former, arguably more ambitious, reform bill — now it’s lawmakers’ turn.

ech Giants Letter in Support of NSA Surveillance Reform Bill USA Freedom Act

Image: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/10/31/tech-giants-letter-suports-usa-freedom-act/

Tech Giants Urge Senate to Reform NSA Surveillance Powers

AOL, apple, Facebook, google, Microsoft, NSA, politics, privacy, surveillance, U.S., US & World, Yahoo

Community Post: Watch 56 Episodes Of Star Trek At The Same Time

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Ross Levinsohn Leaves Yahoo

A little less than two weeks after Marissa Mayer was appointed as Yahoo’s new CEO, the company’s former top exec and interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn, is on his way out.

Mayer sent a note to the company on Monday announcing his departure, a Yahoo spokesperson confirmed in an e-mail to Mashable. “Ross has done a terrific job during his time at Yahoo!. We wish him all the best,” the spokesperson wrote.

The news was originally reported by AllThingsD.

Before becoming interim CEO — a post he was named to after Yahoo’s last CEO, Scott Thompson, was pushed out by the company’s board — he served as Yahoo’s executive vice president of the Americas. Many thought he would be instated as the company’s long-term CEO before Mayer was named to the post, especially since he did so well in the interim period, negotiating the sale of the company’s stake in Alibaba and handling a difficult patent dispute with Facebook.

Levinsohn served as interim CEO from May 13 to July 17. He joined Yahoo in late 2010 under then-CEO Carol Bartz. Before Yahoo, he worked at Fuse Capital, a digital media fund. Before that, he worked at News Corp.

No news on where Levinsohn will be headed next.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/07/30/ross-levinsohn-leaves-yahoo/

Ross Levinsohn Leaves Yahoo

business, marissa mayer, Ross Levinsohn, U.S., Yahoo

Yahoo Finally Launches Bug Bounty Program to Reward Hackers

After offering one hacker a grand total of $25 dollars to buy Yahoo-themed swag (such as T-shirts, “poopy bag dispensers,” or purple rubber ducks), Yahoo is getting serious at rewarding friendly hackers, announcing a program that will offer rewards of up to $15,000.

The company said on Thursday that it had been planning to announce the program for the last month, but decided to fast-track the launch after the incident it referred to as “t-shirt-gate.”

In a blog post titled “So I’m the guy who sent the t-shirt out as a thank you,” Yahoo’s security team director Ramses Martinez revealed that, until now, he personally sent researchers T-shirts and thank you notes as reward for uncovering vulnerabilities or bugs and reporting them to Yahoo.

“It wasn’t a policy, I just thought it would be nice to do something beyond an email. I even bought the shirts with my own money. It wasn’t about the money, just a personal gesture on my behalf,” he wrote.

Now there will be no more T-shirts. Researchers and hackers will get rewards of at least $150, and up to $1,500 for their discoveries. The company will also give them formal recognition in the form of an email or letter, and, in the case of really serious bugs, Yahoo will induct the researcher into a newly created “hall of fame.”

With this announcement, Yahoo joins scores of other companies that have so-called bug bounty programs, which have the dual goal of encouraging researchers to report bugs and foster a good relationship with independent, friendly hackers.

Google, Microsoft, and Facebook already have programs, although Facebook had its own PR misstep when it refused to reward a Palestinian hacker who broke into Mark Zuckerberg’s timeline. The hacker eventually got rewarded with more than $11,000 by a crowdsourced campaign.

What’s more, Martinez announced that the program is retroactive and researchers who reported bugs after July 1, 2013, will get rewarded too. That includes Ilia Kolochenko, who found three serious vulnerabilities in Yahoo mail on Sept. 23, and was then offered a gift voucher of $25.

Kolochenko, who is the CEO of security firm High Tech Bridge, told Mashable that Yahoo still hasn’t contacted him for a reward, but he’s glad it is changing its policies. And he said he was surprised to find out Martinez paid rewards with his own money.

“Such action definitely deserves big respect, but does he get his salary by Yahoo gift-vouchers as well?” he wrote in an email. “I have a feeling that Yahoo’s top management, who didn’t provide their security team with enough funding before our post, now tries to put the blame on the CSO and his team, who reacted rapidly and made good changes to their reward policy. That’s not very fair.”

UPDATE, Oct. 3, 3:04 p.m.: In the event of receiving a monetary award, Ilia Kolochenko said High Tech Bridge will donate it to the non-profit security Open Security Foundation.

Image: Flickr, carvalho

Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/10/03/yahoo-bug-bounty-program/

Yahoo Finally Launches Bug Bounty Program to Reward Hackers

bug, bug bounty program, hackers, U.S., US & World, vulnerability, world, Yahoo, Yahoo Mail

USSS considering TSA-style screening of tourists outside the White House

http://twitter.com/#!/PoliticalLaughs/status/513872822381195264

No word yet if tourists will have to take off their shoes while walking by the White House:

Secret Service considering screening tourist blocks away from the White House, http://t.co/1nWmj1rXtJ

— Caren Bohan (@carenbohan) September 22, 2014

From the Times:

The Secret Service is considering screening tourists and other visitors at checkpoints before they enter the public areas in front of the White House in response to the episode Friday in which a man with a knife managed to get through the front door of the president’s home after jumping over the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue, according to law enforcement officials.

As part of the screening, the Secret Service would establish several checkpoints a few blocks from the White House, the officials said. The screening would likely be limited to bag checks and not include measures taken at airports by the Transportation Security Administration, which include metal detectors and body scans.

Along with giving Secret Service agents and uniformed Secret Service officers a chance to check for explosives and weapons in bags, the screening would allow them to interact with the visitors and try to identify those who may pose a problem, the officials said.

Some spot-on observations from Garance Franke-Ruta of Yahoo! News:

The problem at the WH Friday was with @SecretService actions inside the gates. Not how the area outside the gates is cordoned off.

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) September 22, 2014

This is how White House fence jumpers have been responded to at other times. http://t.co/c3Aw4PZB1k pic.twitter.com/Ni9nfKDwFP

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) September 22, 2014

When I moved to DC folks could learn to drive in Pentagon parking lot, take self-guided tours of WH & play night roller hockey out front.

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) September 22, 2014

What’s next? The NSA gets to monitor any mobile phone in D.C. if it comes near a protected building?

We get that the goal here is to give security inside the fence at the White House a sense that anybody who does jump over the fence isn’t armed or carrying explosives, but we need more details, because it’s not clear that TSA-style anything will accomplish what they want.

And as Ms. Franke-Ruta pointed out, security on the grounds of the White House could do a better job without inconveniencing the thousands of tourists who visit D.C. every day.

Related:

Yesterday’s White House fence-jumper identified as Omar J. Gonzalez, a homeless veteran with PTSD

White House: President Obama has ‘full confidence’ in the Secret Service. Just like every other time he said it?

Breaking: Another security incident at the White House; Suspect arrested

Read more: http://twitchy.com/2014/09/22/secret-service-considering-tsa-style-screening-of-tourists-blocks-away-from-the-white-house/

USSS considering TSA-style screening of tourists outside the White House

Garance Franke-Ruta, Secret Service, White House, Yahoo, ‘The White House

Yahoo is spinning off its stake in Alibaba to avoid taxes

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer at Cannes Lions in France on June 17, 2014.

Image: Lionel Cironneau/Associated Press

Yahoo announced on Tuesday that it will be spinning off its remaining stake in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba.

The move will help the company avoid paying taxes on the profits from its stake in Alibaba, which helped the company reap billions of dollars afters its IPO.

Like people, companies have to pay taxes on profits from investments. However, there are ways to avoid taxes — and this is one of them. The new company, currently called SpinCo, although that name is just a placeholder, will be owned by Yahoo shareholders, who will each receive stock in the business depending on how much Yahoo stock they own.

Shares in Yahoo were trading 7.6% higher in after hours trading. They company’s stock has rise almost 27% in the past 12 months.

Yahoo announced the spinoff together with its fourth-quarter earnings report. It generated 1.18 billion in revenue, just below expectations, while logging earnings per share of $0.30, just above analysts’ estimates.

CEO Marissa Mayer has been under pressure to provide investors with a return from the value that had been accrued thanks to Alibaba’s growth. Yahoo was forced to sell about $10 billion of stock in Alibaba after its IPO, which resulted in around $3 billion in taxes. This time, Yahoo is sidestepping the tax by spinning the assets into a separate business.

Post-spin, $YHOO will have returned $50B to shareholders via it’s @Alibaba stake. (For reference, @Yahoo‘s mkt cap is $47B.)

— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) January 27, 2015

Mayer touted Yahoo’s mobile revenue, noting a 23% increase compared to the previous quarter of 2014. “Our mobile strategy and focus has transformed Yahoo and yielded significant results,” she said in the press release.

On the downside, Yahoo’s core business of display ads continued its descent. Revenue from display adds (excluding traffic acquisition costs) fell 5% compared to the same period in 2013. This comes despite a 17% increase in the number of display ads sold, as price-per-ad continues to plummet, off 20%.

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Read more: http://mashable.com/2015/01/27/yahoo-alibaba-spinoff/

Yahoo is spinning off its stake in Alibaba to avoid taxes

AliBaba, marissa mayer, Yahoo