Richard J. Aldrich: GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · code, cold war, computing, encryption, history, intelligence agency, surveillance, technology, united kingdom
The gripping inside story of the last unknown realm of the British secret service: GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters).
GCHQ is the successor to the famous Bletchley Park wartime code-breaking organisation and is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the country. During the war, it commanded more staff than MI5 and MI6 combined and has produced a number of intelligence triumphs, as well as some notable failures. Since the end of the Cold War, it has played a pivotal role in shaping Britain’s secret state. Still, we know almost nothing about it.
In this ground-breaking new book, Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s evolvement from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside, staffed by eccentric crossword puzzlers, to one of the world leading espionage organisations. It is packed full of dramatic spy stories that shed fresh light on Britain’s role in the Cold War – from the secret tunnels dug beneath Vienna and Berlin to tap Soviet phone lines, and daring submarine missions to gather intelligence from the Soviet fleet, to the notorious case of Geoffrey Pine, one of the most damaging moles ever recruited by the Soviets inside British intelligence. The book reveals for the first time how GCHQ operators based in Cheltenham affected the outcome of military confrontations in far-flung locations such as Indonesia and Malaya, and exposes the shocking case of three GGHQ workers who were killed in an infamous shootout with terrorists while working undercover in Turkey.
Today’s GCHQ struggles with some of the most difficult issues of our time. A leading force of the state’s security efforts against militant terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda, they are also involved in fundamental issues that will mould the future of British society. Compelling and revelatory, Aldrich’s book is the crucial missing link in Britain’s intelligence history.
Publisher HarperPress, 2010
ISBN 0007278470, 9780007278473
666 pages
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EFF: Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices (2011)
Filed under manual | Tags: · data, encryption, law, privacy
Our lives are on our laptops – family photos, medical documents, banking information, details about what websites we visit, and so much more. Thanks to protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the government generally can’t snoop through your laptop for no reason. But those privacy protections don’t safeguard travelers at the U.S. border, where the U.S. government can take an electronic device, search through all the files, and keep it for a while for further scrutiny – without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever.
For doctors, lawyers, and many business professionals, these border searches can compromise the privacy of sensitive professional information, including trade secrets, attorney-client and doctor-patient communications, research and business strategies, some of which a traveler has legal and contractual obligations to protect. For the rest of us, searches that can reach our personal correspondence, health information, and financial records are reasonably viewed as an affront to privacy and dignity and inconsistent with the values of a free society.
Despite the lack of legal protections against the search itself, however, those concerned about the security and privacy of the information on their devices at the border can use technological measures in an effort to protect their data. They can also choose not to take private data across the border with them at all, and then use technical measures to retrieve it from abroad. As the explanations in this publication demonstrate, some of these technical measures are simple to implement, while others are complex and require significant technical skill.
by Seth Schoen, Marcia Hofmann, Rowan Reynolds
Published by Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 2011
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
23 pages
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Sumit Ghosh, Elliot Turrini (eds.): Cybercrimes: A Multidisciplinary Analysis (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · computing, cybercrime, encryption, internet, networks, security, virus
Designed to serve as a reference work for practitioners, academics and scholars worldwide, this book is the first of its kind to explain complex cybercrimes from the perspectives of multiple disciplines (computer science, law, economics, psychology, etc.) and scientifically analyze their impact on individuals, society, and nations holistically and comprehensively. In particular, the book shows – How multiple disciplines concurrently bring out the complex, subtle, and elusive nature of cybercrimes; – How cybercrimes will affect every human endeavor, at the level of individuals, societies, and nations; – How to legislate proactive cyberlaws, building on a fundamental grasp of computers and networking, and stop reacting to every new cyberattack; – How conventional laws and traditional thinking fall short in protecting us from cybercrimes; – How we may be able to transform the destructive potential of cybercrimes into amazing innovations in cyberspace that can lead to explosive technological growth and prosperity.
Publisher Springer, 2010
ISBN 3642135463, 9783642135460
414 pages