Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Yahoo "Secretly Scanned Emails for US Authorities"

posted by takyon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the everyone-invited-to-look dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37551415

Yahoo secretly scanned millions of its users' email accounts on behalf of the US government, according to a report. Reuters news agency says the firm built special software last year to comply with a classified request.

"Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the tech firm said in a statement provided to the BBC.

The allegation comes less than a fortnight after Yahoo said hackers had stolen data about many of its users. Yahoo is in the process of being taken over by Verizon Communications in a $4.8bn (£3.8bn) deal. The telecoms provider declined to comment on the report.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Yahoo "Secretly Scanned Emails for US Authorities" | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 29 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:39AM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:39AM (#410487)

    The only one I see completely in bed with the government is Microsoft. Google engineers were pissed at NSA MITMing their data pipes without their knowledge and implemented encryption pretty quickly. Most of the companies demand warrants for any data access (or those criminal NSLs). Microsoft seems to hand stuff over without question. Ever check how quickly police had email information from Microsoft after the Charlie Hebdo shootings? About 30 minutes.

    DropBox may be on the completely owned list as well due to having Rice of their board of directors.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by butthurt on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:37AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:37AM (#410509) Journal

    Thuraisingham is currently the Louis A. Beecherl distinguished professor and executive director of the Cyber Security Research Institute at the University of Texas, Dallas, and a sought-after expert on data-mining, data management and information security issues. But in the 1990s, she worked for the MITRE Corp., a leading US defense contractor, where she managed the Massive Digital Data Systems initiative, a project sponsored by the NSA, CIA, and the Director of Central Intelligence, to foster innovative research in information technology.

    “We funded Stanford University through the computer scientist Jeffrey Ullman, who had several promising graduate students working on many exciting areas,” Prof. Thuraisingham told me. “One of them was Sergey Brin, the founder of Google. The intelligence community’s MDDS program essentially provided Brin seed-funding, which was supplemented by many other sources, including the private sector.”

    -- https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e [medium.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:33PM (#410647)

    Google engineers were pissed at NSA MITMing their data pipes without their knowledge and implemented encryption pretty quickly.

    i'm sure the engineers were actually suprised and pissed. that's a nice cover for the fact that for several years google strong-armed the whole web for the nsa by having googlebot not support tlsv1.2. remember how beast became public and rc4 was encouraged as the only mitigation? rc4, tlsv1 and ciphers without DH, a winning combination: for the nsa.

    i hate MS more than most, but let's try and be fair here.