No Question: Snowden Was 2013's Most Influential Tech Figure 108
Nerval's Lobster writes "Lots of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and developers made headlines in 2013—but in hindsight, Edward Snowden will likely stand as this year's most influential figure in technology. In June, Snowden began feeding top-secret documents detailing the National Security Agency's surveillance programs to The Guardian and other newspapers. Much of that information, downloaded by Snowden while he served as a system administrator at an NSA outpost in Hawaii, suggested that the U.S. government swept up massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans as part of its broader operations. Whatever one's feelings on the debate over privacy and security, it's undeniable that Snowden's documents have increased general awareness of online vulnerability; but whether that's sparked an increased use of countermeasures—including encryption tools—is another matter entirely. On the developer side of things, when you consider the sheer amount of money, time, and code that'll be invested over the next few years in encryption and encryption-breaking, it's clear that Snowden's influence will be felt for quite some time to come—even if the man himself is trapped in Russian exile."
NSA Has Full Access to the iPhone (Score:5, Informative)
Der Spiegel reported on the NSA’s access to smartphones and, in particular, the iPhone back in September [spiegel.de]. Today, these reports expand to the NSA’s apparent ability to access just about all your iPhone data [forbes.com] through a program called DROPOUTJEEP, according to security researcher Jacob Appelbaum.
The NSA claims a 100% success rate in installing the malware on iPhones. Functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.
It is unknown whether the backdoor was developed in cooperation with Apple, but Appelbaum doubts it. Video of Appelbaum's full speech is included in the article.
Re:NSA Has Full Access to the iPhone (Score:2, Informative)
Only if you're typing in the cyphertext and doing the encryption/decryption off-device.
If they've got root on your phone, no amount of encryption will prevent access to the data (hint, your phone has to decrypt it at some point so you can use it).