Techmeme: NSA paying U.S. companies for access to communications networks (Washington Post)

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August 30, 2013, 12:40 PM

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Patrick Gray / Wired:

Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Surveillance — Everyone assumes that technology companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google don't care that their customers are being spied on. I don't believe that's true. — On the very day the media dropped detailed documents …

More: Hillicon Valley. Tweets: @jilliancyork and @dangillmor

Brian Fung / The Switch:

Obama's intelligence czar vows to release his own transparency report — Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will begin releasing annual reports about the National Security Agency's surveillance activity in the coming months, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has confirmed.

More: IC ON THE RECORD, Computerworld, CNET, Gizmodo, The Atlantic Wire, Hillicon Valley, The Verge, GigaOM, Softpedia News, Politico, Techdirt and WebProNews

Tweets: @jameeljaffer, @b_fung and @digiphile

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

The NSA has its own team of elite hackers — Our Post colleagues have had a busy day. First, they released documents revealing the U.S. intelligence budget from National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden. Then they recounted exactly how the hunt for Osama bin Laden went down.

More: Softpedia News, SlashGear, TechCrunch and The Daily Caller

Tweets: @percival, @vinceinthebay, @virusbtn and @csoghoian

Washington Post:

NSA paying U.S. companies for access to communications networks

More: Computerworld, BGR, PC World, Help Net Security, Wired, DSLreports, Nextgov, Guardian, Motherboard, VentureBeat, dailywireless.org and ZDNet

Tweets: @emptywheel, @billmon1, @timothys, @karabrandeisky, @abbyohlheiser, @paleofuture, @starchy, @csoghoian and @kgosztola

Kelli B. Grant / CNBC:

Apple's iPhone trade-in program to add consumer choice — Apple is poised to start offering an in-store trade-in program, but consumers already have plenty of options to turn their old iPhone into cash—enough, in some cases, to get their next one for free.

More: Macworld, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Gizmodo, SlashGear and Cult of Mac

@cnbc:

BREAKING: Apple tells @jonfortt that $AAPL's trade-in program to roll out nationwide today; customer must leave store with new contract.

More: 9to5Mac, Digits, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, GigaOM, BGR, Ars Technica, ABC News, MacRumors, Engadget, PadGadget, ValueWalk, iPhone Hacks, Gotta Be Mobile, iDownloadBlog.com, Electronista, App Advice and iClarified

Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:

Nokia unveils its connected car platform: Here Auto — After years of being the auto industry's mapmaker, Nokia on Friday announced its intention to become a much bigger technological force in the vehicle. Nokia took the wraps off of Here Auto, an embedded infotainment and connected car system …

More: Nokia Conversations, TechHive, Engadget, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Gearburn, Benzinga, Nokia Conversations, Electronista, The Next Web, SlashGear, TechCrunch, Gotta Be Mobile, Crave, ZDNet and Ubergizmo. Tweets: @heremaps

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft makes latest Surface price cuts permanent — Summary: Microsoft is cutting prices on Surface Pro, Surface RT and touch covers and making those cuts permanent, rather than promotional. — Microsoft has made previously temporary price-cut promotions for its Surface devices permanent.

More: AppleInsider, Los Angeles Times, AllThingsD, GigaOM, Digital Trends, TechHive, It's a Gadget, The Verge, SlashGear, The Tech Report, WebProNews, Pocket-lint, TechSpot, The Next Web, PC Pro, WinBeta and Softpedia News

Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:

More Galaxy Gear details leak: 10 hour battery life, two storage options — We've already heard most of the details on Samsung's smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear, but there's still room (and time) for some more information. The latest leaks from AmongTech confirm what our sources have told us but with the addition of a few more tidibts.

More: AmongTech, Business Insider, Android Beat, FierceCIO:TechWatch News, FierceWireless, Digital Trends, Android and Me, Guardian, Gearburn, Examiner, dailywireless.org, CNET, Android Community, TechnoBuffalo, Gotta Be Mobile, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, pocketnow.com and MobileSyrup.com

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Google:

Screenshots of Samsung's ‘Galaxy Gear’ smartwatch companion app leak ahead of Sept. 4 unveiling

More: The Verge, ReadWrite, BGR, Sammy Hub, Ubergizmo, Android Beat, Mashable, Pocket-lint, pocketnow.com, Android Police, Gizmodo, Fone Arena and IntoMobile

Tweets: @evleaks and @charlesarthur

Dan Farber / CNET:

A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO — “There is no clear candidate with the visionary skills to turn company around other than Bill Gates,” says Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. — The evaluations of Steve Ballmer's 33 years at Microsoft are winding down …

More: Inquirer, X-bit labs, bizjournals, GeekWire, Business Insider, Computerworld, ValueWalk and TechCrunch

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Forget 1TB, China's Tencent is giving away 10TB worth of free cloud storage — Yesterday we reported that Chinese tech giants Baidu and Qihoo 360 are currently courting users with 1TB of free space, putting the free space given by Dropbox, Box and Microsoft to shame.

More: Gizmodo, Engadget, memeburn and Softpedia News. Tweets: @cstromme

Bloomberg:

Carl Icahn Increases Nuance Stake, May Seek Board Seat — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn boosted his stake in Nuance Communications Inc. (NUAN) and may seek to put a representative on the board of the speech-recognition software maker. — Funds controlled by Icahn, including Icahn Partners LP …

More: ZDNet

Joanna Stern / ABC News:

Twitter Conversations New Blue Line Causing Many Twitter Users to Feel Blue … Twitter made some updates on Wednesday to its apps and its website, as it does from time to time. The biggest change was intended to make it easier to keep up with conversations on the social network.

More: Bijan Sabet, Wired.co.uk, Brian Solis, hypebot, CNET, The Atlantic Wire, Softpedia News, CNN and Fortune

Tweets: @dannysullivan, @hunterwalk, @parislemon, @zpower, @jbrodkin, @zpower, @parislemon, @gaberivera, @mat, @levie, @_theblueline and @mattbuchanan

Harry Brignull / The Verge:

Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you — These carefully crafted elements are built to misdirect and confuse — Harry Brignull is a London, UK-based independent user experience designer with a PhD in cognitive science. He is also the founder of Dark Patterns …

Tweets: @mickeleh, @skybondsor and @gt

Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac:

Gold, Graphite iPhone 5S shells shown on video, structure compared to iPhone 5 — In what seems to be a never-ending string of “gold” iPhone 5S part leaks, new high-quality videos analyze what appear to be legitimate rear shells for the upcoming iPhone 5S...

More: LAPTOP Magazine, BGR, BestTechInfo, MacRumors, iMore, Gizmodo, Wired, MacDailyNews, Gearburn, SlashGear, everythingiCafe, AppleTell, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks and TechnoBuffalo

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

Microsoft rolls out 50GB mailboxes for Exchange Online, Office 365 — Summary: Microsoft doubles its cloud email storage capacity for users and streaks ahead of Google Apps. — Liam Tung — After tripling file storage capacity on SkyDrive Pro this week, Microsoft has announced it's doubling …

More: The Microsoft Office Blog, VentureBeat, WebProNews, The Register, TechNet Blogs and MSDN Blogs. Tweets: @maryjofoley

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

AT&T's no-contract Aio Wireless available nationwide in September — AT&T is taking its T-Mobile competitor Aio Wireless nationwide. The no-contract prepaid service is currently only available in Florida, Texas, Metro-Atlanta, and Chicago, but beginning in mid-September …

More: AT&T, MacRumors, GigaOM, VentureBeat, DSLreports, AllThingsD, dailywireless.org, iPhone, Gotta Be Mobile, Engadget, SlashGear and TmoNews

BBC:

Amazon to alter pricing policy for traders — Online retailer Amazon is to alter its pricing policy for third-party traders amid investigations in the UK and Germany. — It will drop a clause banning traders signed up to its Marketplace platform from offering products elsewhere for cheaper.

More: Bloomberg, Guardian, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Geek.com and The Equity Kicker. Tweets: @victoriastrauss

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Unpatched Mac bug gives attackers “super user” status by going back in time — Researchers have made it easier to exploit a five-month-old security flaw that allows penetration testers and less-ethical hackers to gain nearly unfettered “root” access to Macs over which they already have limited control.

More: SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, ZDNet, Naked Security, Macworld and Threatpost

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Follow-up on New Zealand: patent offices and judges don't interpret patent law like geeks do — My tale-of-caution post on yesterday's adoption of a patent reform bill in New Zealand has been one of my most popular writings this month — popular in terms of the interest it has drawn …

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