U.S.-China Surveillance

A recently-aired installment of the PBS Now program, now available online, discusses allegations of a secret U.S. government program that scans and stores virtually every email sent within the United States. Details of this program first came to light after former AT&T employee and whistle blower Mark Klein publicly disclosed that he had witnessed the [...]

Paul Cesarini, an Assistant Professor at Bowling Green, has an interesting story posted in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Seems that his use of Tor, a powerful application that helps to mask one’s surfing and online publishing behavior, drew the attention of campus police and network security technicians, who warned him he was in breach [...]

Xinhua today is reporting that China’s Ministry of Public Security has opened access to its new national citizen ID database in an effort to curb fraud:
Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country’s population information center’s website, to check if the name and the ID number of a person’s identity [...]

Searchsecurity.com, reporting yesterday on the ongoing RSA Conference 2007 in San Francisco, quoted Robert Cresanti, under secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce, on China’s desire to develop manufacturing standards for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology:
Officials from China have approached the U.S. federal government seeking standards for RFID chip production, said Cresanti, who serves as [...]