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Feb 12 16 9:43 AM
James Clapper did not name specific agency as being involved in surveillance via smart-home devices but said in congressional testimony it is a distinct possibilityThe US intelligence chief has acknowledged for the first time that agencies might use a new generation of smart household devices to increase their surveillance capabilities. As increasing numbers of devices connect to the internet and to one another, the so-called internet of things promises consumers increased convenience – the remotely operated thermostat from Google-owned Nest is a leading example. But as home computing migrates away from the laptop, the tablet and the smartphone, experts warn that the security features on the coming wave of automobiles, dishwashers and alarm systems lag far behind.In an appearance at a Washington thinktank last month, the director of the National Security Agency, Adm Michael Rogers, said that it was time to consider making the home devices “more defensible”, but did not address the opportunities that increased numbers and even categories of connected devices provide to his surveillance agency. However, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, was more direct in testimony submitted to the Senate on Tuesday as part of an assessment of threats facing the United States. “In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper said. Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones. Amateurs are already interested in easily compromised hardware; computer programmer John Matherly’s search engine Shodan indexes thousands of completely unsecured web-connected devices.
James Clapper did not name specific agency as being involved in surveillance via smart-home devices but said in congressional testimony it is a distinct possibility
The US intelligence chief has acknowledged for the first time that agencies might use a new generation of smart household devices to increase their surveillance capabilities.
As increasing numbers of devices connect to the internet and to one another, the so-called internet of things promises consumers increased convenience – the remotely operated thermostat from Google-owned Nest is a leading example. But as home computing migrates away from the laptop, the tablet and the smartphone, experts warn that the security features on the coming wave of automobiles, dishwashers and alarm systems lag far behind.
In an appearance at a Washington thinktank last month, the director of the National Security Agency, Adm Michael Rogers, said that it was time to consider making the home devices “more defensible”, but did not address the opportunities that increased numbers and even categories of connected devices provide to his surveillance agency.
However, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, was more direct in testimony submitted to the Senate on Tuesday as part of an assessment of threats facing the United States.
“In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper said.
Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones. Amateurs are already interested in easily compromised hardware; computer programmer John Matherly’s search engine Shodan indexes thousands of completely unsecured web-connected devices.
Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/09/internet-of-things-smart-home-devices-government-surveillance-james-clapper
Sounds to me there will be a huge amount of money to be made in making cars and household equipment that are NOT connected.....
Covert cellphone tracking devices, which have proliferated in law enforcement agencies across the nation, have been used by the New York Police Department on at least 1,000 occasions since 2008 in the course of investigating rapes, murders and other crimes, as well as in searches for missing people, according to documents obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union.The documents, which the civil liberties group released publicly on Thursday morning, offer the first glimpse into how the nation’s largest municipal police department has used the surveillance devices, known as StingRays, as frequently as 200 times a year, while avoiding any public debate or any major courtroom review of the constitutionality of its actions.“The N.Y.P.D. has been using StingRays since 2008, and yet this is the first time that the public is learning this information,” said Mariko Hirose, the civil liberties union lawyer who received the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. “When local law enforcement agencies acquire invasive surveillance technologies like StingRays, communities should have the right to know basic information about what kind of surveillance powers those technologies give to the government and how those devices will be used.”
Covert cellphone tracking devices, which have proliferated in law enforcement agencies across the nation, have been used by the New York Police Department on at least 1,000 occasions since 2008 in the course of investigating rapes, murders and other crimes, as well as in searches for missing people, according to documents obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The documents, which the civil liberties group released publicly on Thursday morning, offer the first glimpse into how the nation’s largest municipal police department has used the surveillance devices, known as StingRays, as frequently as 200 times a year, while avoiding any public debate or any major courtroom review of the constitutionality of its actions.
“The N.Y.P.D. has been using StingRays since 2008, and yet this is the first time that the public is learning this information,” said Mariko Hirose, the civil liberties union lawyer who received the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. “When local law enforcement agencies acquire invasive surveillance technologies like StingRays, communities should have the right to know basic information about what kind of surveillance powers those technologies give to the government and how those devices will be used.”
Read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/nyregion/new-york-police-dept-cellphone-tracking-stingrays.html?mabReward=A6
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