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Did Another Hacker Steal NSA Exploits from the Shadow Brokers?

A Twitter user who goes by @1×0123 claims to have stolen the data that The Shadow Brokers hacked from the NSA.

nsa hacker

Gizmodo reached out to the hacker and were unable to verify their claims. However, back in April, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, gave them praise for reporting a vulnerability which may lend some credibility.

Thanks to @1×0123 for reporting a piwik vulnerability to @FreedomofPress! Great work. Got a bug report? Please contact @ageis with details.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 10, 2016

The hacker says they just need “some money to pay bills and stuff” and offered to share 50% of it with Gizmodo if they wanted to make an offer.

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Filed Under: NSA

Facial Recognition gets “Hacked” Thanks to Facebook

Facial recognition technology is utilized in many different systems. Biometric software is used in facial recognition tools for security purposes and other applications such as social media marketing. Algorithms use a statistical approach to identify facial features – and facial recognition is increasingly used as a crime-fighting tool. In the future it could be used to monitor employee attendance at work, to enhance security measures at ATMs and to prevent voter fraud. Many privacy advocates see a problem with this technology because it could quickly turn us into a surveillance society.

University of North Carolina researchers have discovered a way to get around facial recognition security. By using a virtual reality (VR) system to develop 3D models of the face, they were able to trick the biometric security measures. They did this with just a handful of photos found on Facebook and were able to fool the systems more than half the time (Newsweek).

Clearly this is a huge security flaw in the technology which means other types of “verifiable data” would need to be used for authentication in order for facial recognition to be a feasible option. One technique that could be used is the detection of infrared radiation which would be given off by a real face, not a 3D model (Techworm).

For more information on how facial recognition technologies work, check out this video from Brit Lab:

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A Seized Silk Road Wallet is Moving Bitcoin to the NSA Hackers

Last week, a group called the “Shadow Brokers” claimed to have hacked the NSA – stealing their code, exploits and spy tools. They leaked bits of information on GitHub and claimed the information was stolen from the Equation Group, a group who most believe is a computer surveillance wing of the NSA. The Shadow Brokers says they will auction off the data to the highest bidder. Leaks from Edward Snowden have demonstrated that this hack is legit. (The Register) Security experts believe that the hacker group is Russian.

Now it appears that there are some Bitcoin moving from a seized Silk Road wallet to the Shadow Broker’s auction. This leads some experts to believe that “the US government is potentially bidding to prevent stolen NSA exploits and tools from ending up in the wrong hands”. It could also mean that the government might be making an attempt to trace where the Bitcoins are going. Additionally, it must be noted that the co-founder of a major Bitcoin investigation company says that payments are also going in the other direction. This could simply indicate that spam is being sent in very small payments to famous addresses. (ZDNet)

So far, the Shadow Brokers have collected around $1000 in Bitcoin payments – a far cry from the 1 million Bitcoins they have demanded (which would be worth just over a half a billion $USD at the time of this writing). The U.S. government seized several thousand Bitcoin when shutting down Silk Road, so this may be their source of funds when dealing with the Shadow Broker hackers.

Learn more about the Shadow Brokers hack of the NSA here:

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