Facebook Works With The FBI To Take Down Hackers In $850 Million Heist

Facebook and FBI partnered to take down 10 hackers that had stolen $850 million in the last 2 years.  The hackers were spread across Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.  Those hackers were responsible for “more than 11 million compromised computer systems and over $850 million in losses via the Butterfly Botnet, which steals computer users’ credit card, bank account, and other personal identifiable information.”

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FBI Starts Implementing $1 Billion Facial Recognition Software

The FBI has started implementing a $1 billion facial recognition program.  New Scientist is reporting that the Next Generation Identification (NGI) software will combine iris scans, biometrics, DNA and voice prints into a profiling tool.  Some states are already using the technology in a limited form.  Here is the privacy problem that NewScientist wrote about:

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FBI Says That AntiSec Is Lying About Stolen UDID Numbers

Hacker group AntiSec claimed to have stolen 12 million UDID from iPod Touches, iPhones, and iPads from FBI computers.  The FBI claims that AntiSec is lying.  UDIDs are a unique identifier code for iOS devices that is used when activating your iOS device or when adding it to a developer account.  Each account has a unique UDID code so it is like a serial number.  AntiSec claims to have stolen the UDID codes from a compromised FBI laptop through a Java vulnerability.

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Law Enforcement Agencies Asked Wireless Companies For Information Regarding 1.3 Million Subscribers Last Year

Cellphone companies have reported that they have responded to 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies.  The agencies were seeking text messages and caller locations.  The carriers published the reports as a response to a Congressional inquiry.  Wireless companies are churning over thousands of records per day.

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FBI Now Has Surveillance Unit That Monitors Skype and Other Internet Communications

This past January, Bangladeshi terrorist Rajib Karim filed a complaint for not being able to use Skype so that he can make low cost calls to contact his family while he is in Jail. Terrorists are known for using Skype for conspiracy purposes. This is one of the biggest reasons why the FBI is getting ready to launch a surveillance unit that is capable of spying on Skype conversations and other Internet communications. The Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC) is a collaboration between the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and the DEA. All three agenices are building customized hardware to enable wiretapping on Internet conversations if they get a court order request. The DCAC will also be available for state, local, and federal police. The FBI is also working on an initiative to develop an automatic mass-monitoring computer application to analyze Facebook for crime-related comments.

The FBI May Have Inadvertently Agreed To Being Involved With Carrier IQ

The FBI used the Freedom of Information Act to inadvertently admit somehow being involved with Carrier IQ. Carrier IQ created network diagnostic software that was accused of collecting personal information. Government transparency blog MuckRock has filed for an FOIA release on the FBI’s use of Carrier IQ. The FBI said no and said the following:
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FBI Raids Apartment Of SAG Member Wes DeSoto For Allegedly Uploading The King’s Speech and Black Swan To The Pirate Bay

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the apartment Wes DeSoto, a member of the Screen Actors Guild. THe FBI believes that he was the first one to upload the movies The King’s Speech and Black Swan to The Pirate Bay in January. The FBI is also looking into whether DeSoto is part of The Pirate Bay pre-release movie-uploading group that is known as TiMPE.
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