On September 2, 2006 a revised version of the NSA Central Security Service policy 1-23 was noticed to contain the following allowances which clearly breach the freedoms of American Citizens…

(S/SI) Foreign communications of, or concerning, United States persons that are intercepted by the United States Signals Intelligence System may be retained in their original form or as transcribed only:

(a) if processed so as to eliminate any reference to United States persons;

(b) if necessary to the maintenance of technical data bases. Retention for this purpose is permitted for a period sufficient to allow a thorough exploitation and to permit access to data that are, or are reasonably believed likely to become, relevant to a current or future intelligent requirement. Sufficient duration may vary with the nature of the exploitation. In the context of a cryptanalytic effort, sufficient duration may consist of a period of time during which encrypted material is subject to, or of use in, cryptanalysis. In the case of international commercial communications that may contain the identity of United States persons and that are not enciphered or otherwise thought to contain secret meaning, sufficient duration is one year unless the Deputy Director for Operations, National Security Agency, determines in writing that retention for a longer period is required to respond   to authorized foreign intelligence or counterintelligence requirements;

D. (C) Signals Intelligence: Search and Development.

The United States Signals Intelligence System may conduct search and development activities with respect to signals throughout the radio spectrum under thefollowing limitations:

1. Collection. Signals may be collected only for the purpose of identifying those signals that:

(a) may contain information related to the production of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence;

(b) are enciphered or appear to contain secret meaning;

(c) are necessary to ensure efficient signals intelligence collection or to avoid the collection of unwanted signals; or

(d) reveal vulnerability of United States communications security.

The following is taken from the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

Pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C. App, notice is hereby given that the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) will meet Thursday, September 14, 2006, from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Friday, September 15, 2006, from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. All sessions will be open to the public.

The Advisory Board was established by the Computer Security Act of 1987 (Pub. L. 100-235) and amended by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-347) to advise the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of NIST on security and privacy issues pertaining to Federal computer systems. Details regarding the Board’s activities are available at http://csrc.nist.gov/ispab/

Public Participation: The Board agenda will include a period of time, not to exceed thirty minutes, for oral comments and questions from the public. Each speaker will be limited to five minutes. Members of the public

The meeting will take place at the George Washington University Cafritz Conference Center 800 21st Street, NW., Room 101, Washington, DC.

The Agenda:

• Welcome and Overview.
• NIST Computer Security Division Update.
• Overview of the Privacy Civil Liberties Oversight Board Activities
• Data Security Breaches.
• Privacy Technology Project Discussion.
• Safeguarding Personal Information– Government Steps and Lessons Learned.
• Update Status of Security and Privacy Legislation.
• OMB Update.
• HSPD-12 Status Briefing.
• Wrap-Up.

If you are in the US, this is a good opportunity to enquire about the changes to your civil liberties and pose any questions you may have.

Yesterday BT announced that they are to begin rolling out the successor to the current System X digital telephone system. 21st Century Network, or 21CN, is an Internet Protocol based system that is believed to be the future of UK telecoms. BT have disclosed that they are to run a trial in Cardiff, whereby 10% of users are expected to be using the new 21CN system by March 2007, with the rest of the city migrating to 21CN by 2008. IP based telephony, as a national infrastruture, has been under much scrutiny and its applications under varied opinions. However, offering more features than the current control method and the reduced costs in maintaining such a network, BT plans to convert the rest of its network to 21CN should the trials go well.

Keep watch on 2600uk as we will be producing a small article covering the technology, features and implimentations of the new 21CN system in the near future.

Techworld reports that “There’s a new video codec out there that claims to offer ‘up to 40 percent better video quality’ but that resets your computer’s DNS settings — opening the way for Trojans, rootkits, or whatever. Techworld warns that zCodec looks professional enough, is widely available, and comes in at 100KB. What’s the bet the media companies are behind this somewhere?”

“A new Toronto Star article from Michael Geist not only describes why Canadian Ministers of Education are pushing a copyright proposal that will harm Internet access, but also reveals how a copyright group is seeking to create a new license for Internet content. Access Copyright, a copyright collective, wants to use a new international text standard to license everything from books to blogs. Geist outlines in his blog how Canadians can fight back against these bonehead proposals.”

So last month was the first real push with the site, despite a lack of advertising and what not, we managed to do pretty well. The site went live in July to a small audience, ending on 93 unique visitors for the month. Now in our second month our figures have grown dranatically. August saw our stats top out at 344 unique visitors contributing 4379 hits!

Furthermore, we have been quoted on sites such as news.com, and linked to from numerous sites including, Icerocket, Technorati and Answers.com.

As well as our massive increase in visitors and our media exposure, we had a number of rather interesting visitors emerging from the inner workings of well known institutions. Below is a small list of some of the better ones:

• Institute of Physics (IOP) www.iop.org
• svext.nec-labs.com
• VeriSign Infrastructure & Operations (208.17.184.62)
• wp.eris.qinetiq.com (DERA)
• leonet.royalbank.com
• BIOPASS MEDICAL SYSTEMS
• rc8fhf.rcertc.army.mil
• NASA (139.229.33.92)
• legion.dera.gov.uk
• www.maxcyte.com (Biotech Company)
• ritig5.rit.reuters.com
• fw54.torolab.ibm.com
• ex2k.cdacouncil.org
• www.shef.ac.uk (University of Sheffield)
• www.monitor110.com
• webgw0.thls.bbc.co.uk
• Kyoto University (133.3.96.208)
• 0×10.com
• ce-tec.kuwait.net

Mozilla released a second beta version of its upcoming Firefox 2.0 browser on Thursday. The release is targeted at developers and intended to generate more feedback while also incorporating a number of bug fixes contained in the Beta 1 version of the code, released in July.

Source : The Register - Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 unleashed
More Information : Firefox 2.0 Dev Page

A hacker who broke into the systems of T-Mobile USA and lifted the personal details of around 400 people, including a US Secret Service agent, has escaped imprisonment. Nicholas Lee Jacobsen, 23, was sentenced to one year of home detention and a fine of $10,000 in compensation to T-Mobile over the 2004 attack.

Even though Jacobsen was left able to access personal data held by Special Agent Peter Cavicchia on a sidekick mobile device, the Secret Service is ruling out the possibility that any investigations might have been compromised.

Source : The Register - T-Mobile hacker escapes imprisonment