Vancouver-based tech entrepreneurs have launched Vanish, the first messaging app that allows users to delete and have complete control of their data. Brothers Dylan and Jordan Sidoo and friend Jaiten Gill are the masterminds behind the messaging app. The Sidoos and Gill have an extensive background in security and technology. After witnessing security breaches firsthand and experiencing insecure messaging apps, they decided to create their very own. The app allows users to speak freely without storing any information on a cloud device. Messages can also be completely erased, even the ones sent to the receiver’s device. When the messages…
read more...US Tech Companies Under Scrutiny in White House Russia Probe
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Inside a converted port terminal, thousands of tech entrepreneurs gathered this week to pitch their ideas at TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual event that focuses on emerging technologies. But this is no ordinary time for the tech industry, which finds itself under increasing scrutiny from Washington over how Russia used social media to influence the U.S. elections. This week, Facebook announced that it would give U.S. lawmakers access to ads linked to Russia that were placed on the site leading up to the 2016 presidential election. "We are in a new world," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg…
read more...DARPA Is Looking For The Perfect Encryption App, and It’s Willing to Pay
While the FBI keeps crying wolf about the dangerous dark future where criminals use technology that’s impossible to spy on, the Pentagon’s blue-sky research arm wants someone to create the ultimate hacker-proof messaging app. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, is looking for a “secure messaging and transaction platform” that would use the standard encryption and security features of current messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Signal, or Ricochet, but also use a decentralized Blockchain-like backbone structure that would be more resilient to surveillance and cyberattacks. DARPA’s goal is to have “a secure messaging…
read more...How to Make Your Own NSA Bulk Surveillance System
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Of all the NSA surveillance documents Edward Snowden leaked, some of the most important exposed the spy agency’s so-called XKEYSCORE program, a massive system for vacuuming up and sifting through emails, chats, images, online search activity, usernames and passwords, and other private digital data from core fiber optics cables around the world. XKEYSCORE, which the NSA calls its “widest reaching” surveillance program, was established around 2008 and consists of more than 700 servers that store data sucked from the internet’s backbone and mine this data for patterns and connections. Only a well-resourced party like the NSA could deploy…
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