Showing posts with label messages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label messages. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2015
NSA collects daily data from over 200m text messages around the world
The US National Security Agency (NSA) has collected and stored data from over 200 million text messages daily from users across the world.
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According to UK spies part of a joint investigation by the Guardian and Channel 4, the NDA extracts and stores the data from your SMS messages.
The investigation discovered the NSA’s activities through material leaked by ex-NSA employee, and whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
From the “untargeted” collection and storage of over 200 million texts per day, the NSA gains personal information like your location, credit card details and contact networks, according to the documents leaked.
The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects “pretty much everything it can”, according to documents held by the UK spy agency GCHQ, rather than only from surveillance targets.
GCHQ has used the information obtained by Dishfire to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications of UK citizens.
“The implication that NSA’s collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false,” said the NSA in a statement. “NSA’s activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements.”
The GCHQ also stated that all its work was “carried out in accordance with the strict legal and policy framework.”
In addition to storing the SMS data, the NSA also employs a program called “Prefer” to conduct automated analysis on all the communications.
According to the investigation’s findings, the NSA is able to extract the following each day:
- More than 5 million missed-call alerts, for use in contact-sharing analysis
- Details of 1.6 million border crossings a day, from network roaming alerts
- More than 110,000 names from electronic business cards, which also included the ability to extract and save images
- Over 800,000 financial transactions, either through text-to-text payments or linking credit cards to phones
The GCHQ isn’t allowed to trawl the NSA data unless it has a warrant, and a memo sets out clearly what access to Dishfire is allowed. It does clearly state that Dishfire’s unique property is that it stores a huge amount of untargeted and unselected information.
“In contrast to [most] GCHQ equivalents, DISHFIRE contains a large volume of unselected SMS traffic. This makes it particularly useful for the development of new targets, since it is possible to examine the content of messages sent months or even years before the target was known to be of interest”, reads the GCHQ memo.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Skype boosts iOS app with unlimited free video messages
Microsoft-owned VoIP app Skype has updated its wares for iOS users, allowing them to send unlimited free video messages to fellow users.
The newly-tuned app lifts restrictions on video clips, which had previously limited users to just 20 free videos a month unless they upgraded to the $4.99 Skype Premium subscription.
The update comes just over a week after Skype announced it would be making video messages completely free on all platforms.
In a blog post at the time the company said: "Video messaging is now available to all Skype users. You can send and receive as many video messages as you want – completely free of charge. Video messages can be received and viewed on any platform or device running Skype."
The functionality allows users to send video messages up to three minutes in length from Skypes smartphone, tablets and Windows and Mac apps.
Its proved popular for those wishing to send personal video messages quickly and easily, while its also a good alternative if users are unable to make contact when attempting to make a live voice and video call.
As well as some general fixes and improvements, the app also improves video and audio call stability and brings more reliable photo sharing.
Earlier this month the company had rolled out the video message feature, which first appeared for iOS, Android and Mac users in February, to BlackBerry, Windows 8 and Windows desktop users.
Strangely, considering Microsoft owns the company, the feature is yet to hit Windows Phone.
Read more »
The newly-tuned app lifts restrictions on video clips, which had previously limited users to just 20 free videos a month unless they upgraded to the $4.99 Skype Premium subscription.
The update comes just over a week after Skype announced it would be making video messages completely free on all platforms.
In a blog post at the time the company said: "Video messaging is now available to all Skype users. You can send and receive as many video messages as you want – completely free of charge. Video messages can be received and viewed on any platform or device running Skype."
The functionality allows users to send video messages up to three minutes in length from Skypes smartphone, tablets and Windows and Mac apps.
Its proved popular for those wishing to send personal video messages quickly and easily, while its also a good alternative if users are unable to make contact when attempting to make a live voice and video call.
As well as some general fixes and improvements, the app also improves video and audio call stability and brings more reliable photo sharing.
Earlier this month the company had rolled out the video message feature, which first appeared for iOS, Android and Mac users in February, to BlackBerry, Windows 8 and Windows desktop users.
Strangely, considering Microsoft owns the company, the feature is yet to hit Windows Phone.
Friday, June 20, 2014
BlackBerry OS 10 2 leaks lets you reply to messages from notifications
BlackBerry 10 users, have you been dreaming of the day that you get Wi-Fi Direct compatibility and souped up notifications?
Because we have excellent news, if so. Some leaked screen grabs of BlackBerry OS 10.2 show that both of those features are en route to your BB10 device.
The screen grabbed leaks hit the Crackberry forums (of course) and brought with them news of actionable notifications which is a horrible way of saying that you can reply to messages and that kind of thing from within notifications instead of having to spend precious seconds opening the messaging app.
Wi-Fi Direct, meanwhile, allows users to share bits and pieces between devices over Wi-Fi, but without needing to go through a router or an established Wi-Fi network - similar to Bluetooth.
Other new bits and pieces include a native Evernote app (oooh!), an upgraded settings app (aaah!) and a better app manager (swoon).
As for when the software will launch, your guess is as good as ours. One things for sure though, its not coming to the PlayBook.
Read more »
Because we have excellent news, if so. Some leaked screen grabs of BlackBerry OS 10.2 show that both of those features are en route to your BB10 device.
The screen grabbed leaks hit the Crackberry forums (of course) and brought with them news of actionable notifications which is a horrible way of saying that you can reply to messages and that kind of thing from within notifications instead of having to spend precious seconds opening the messaging app.
Sharing and caring
Wi-Fi Direct, meanwhile, allows users to share bits and pieces between devices over Wi-Fi, but without needing to go through a router or an established Wi-Fi network - similar to Bluetooth.
Other new bits and pieces include a native Evernote app (oooh!), an upgraded settings app (aaah!) and a better app manager (swoon).
As for when the software will launch, your guess is as good as ours. One things for sure though, its not coming to the PlayBook.
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