NSA's spyware piggybacks on Google advertising cookies to track targets

In yet another disclosure from Edward Snowden's pile of leaked NSA documents, The Washington Post has revealed that the US surveillance agency may be using Google's advertising cookies to track and "pinpoint" targets for government hacking and location-tracking. According to Snowden's leaked presentation slides, both the NSA and the British equivalent, the GCHQ, are using a Google-specific ad cookie (know as "PREF") as a way of honing in on specific surveillance targets. While Google's cookie doesn't contain personal information like a name or email address, it does contain numeric codes that uniquely identify a user's browser. That identifier reportedly helps the NSA and the GCHQ single out a specific machine and send out its software to hack Into the user's computer.

Google's PREF cookie reportedly gets loaded onto a computer when they use Google's products, like Search or Maps — it can also be loaded through sites that host Google products, like an embedded map on a third-party site. That cookie contains a code that lets Google track users to personalize their ad experience; The Washington Post claims that "most" internet users probably have such a cookie even if they don't directly visit Google's sites.

The report notes that the NSA doesn't use this technique to find suspicious activity amidst the massive flood of internet communication that takes place every day — instead, it uses it to hone in on targets already under suspicion. Either way, it's not a cookie usage that internet users expect, nor one that Google currently discloses. It's not clear whether Google is willfully allowing the NSA to piggyback on its cookies or whether it was required to by the FISA court. Google declined comment to The Washington Post; we've reached out to see if they can confirm or deny the report's allegations. Given recent scrutiny into the security of Google data (not the least of which is coming from Microsoft), this revelation can't be a happy one for the search and advertising giant — Google relies on its ad revenue, and it certainly doesn't want users to actively start blocking its advertising cookies because of surveillance fears.TheVerge

Comments

iPad (2022) and iPad Pro with M2 announced

Apple has announced their latest iteration of the iPad (entry level model) and the iPad Pro lineup with the new M2 processor. The event, held on the 18th of October as a recorded session displayed the key features of the iPads with the most significant being the base model iPad which has now received an upgrade. iPad 2022 This model of the base model iPad ditches the almost 12 year old home button and display layout and goes for a cleaner display only design found on the iPad Air . The chassis, which now comes with flatter sides and a TouchID fingerprint sensor on the top has also abandoned the lightning port in favor of USB C and it also comes with a set of pogo style connectors for accessories including a keyboard with trackpad. Internally, the iPad comes either as a Wifi only (Wifi6) and a 5G cellular model and is offered with 64 or 256GB of storage. The processor has also been upgraded to the Apple A14 which is the same found on the iPhone 12 series and last year's iPad Air. L

Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 pro along with Pixel watch unveiled.

Google announced their latest Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro smartphones along with the Pixel Watch - google's first wearable at a special launch event today. The devices, which are powered by Google's second generation Tensor SOC bring major improvements in photography which has always been Google's highlight. Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. Google's Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro are Google's latest flagship phones for 2022. The devices, which have been developed around the Tensor G2 - Google's second generation processor developed on a 4nm architecture. The chipset, which consists of 2 Cortex X1 cores, 2 Cortex A78 cores and 4 Cortex A55 cores with a Mali G710 MC10 GPU cores and the chip is paired with 8GB of RAM for the Pixel 7 and 12GB RAM for the Pro variant. Both models come with 128 / 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage and the pro model comes with 512GB. The phones, which come with two different display sizes consist of a 6.3" 2400x1080 AMOLED display with 90Hz refre

Nikon D850 is official

Nikon D850 has probably been the company's worst kept secret . The camera , which was announced a month back during Nikon's 100 year anniversary just explained in brief ,but thanks to leakers some of that information managed to hit the internet and inadvertently lead the camera to be the most talked about topic in the camera world . But now , after a month of waiting anxiously for the official pricing (rumors made headlines after many quoted $1000-2000 more than the official one ) , the Nikon D850 is finally official . Nikon D850 The Nikon D850 is Nikon's jack of all trades semi - flagship camera which sits below the D5 but above the D750 . The model which succeeds the D810 from almost 3 years back is armed with a new backlit 35mm sensor and the largest optical viewfinder and pentaprism for any camera . Video features on the camera include 4K with full sensor readout and features 8K timelapse . The camera features 7 fps at full resolution and 9fps when connecte

MasHD Blog

Search This Blog