Government

UPDATE – The Senate today rejected the inclusion of four privacy-friendly amendments before voting to reauthorize the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that grants the federal government the authority to clandestinely monitor electronic communications involving foreign citizens coming into or out of the United States without the probable cause required for traditional warrants.

In the early days of the Obama administration, the president declared cyberspace a critical asset. Since then, little more than lip service has been paid on a policy level to the security of the country’s critical infrastructure, despite increasing public awareness of the problem and high-profile attacks on business and government alike.

The European Union has set a series of ambitious goals for itself: by 2020, the 27 member states expect to collectively use 20 percent renewable energy, reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent, and increase energy efficiency by 20 percent. In order to accomplish these goals, Europe will need to perform a major overhaul to its power grid, which will play an integral role in the development of the Union’s proposed energy economy.

The Federal Trade Commission Tuesday demanded nine data brokerage companies turn over details on how they collect and use consumer information as part of an inquiry into the industry’s business practices.The companies include Acxiom of Little Rock, Ark.; Corelogic of Irvine, Calif.; Datalogix of Westminster, Colo.; eBureau of St. Cloud, Minn.; ID Analytics of San Diego; Intelius of Bellevue, Wash.; Peekyou of New York; Rapleaf of Chicago; and Recorded Future of Cambridge, Mass.

Attempts by foreign governments, individuals and government-associated groups to steal intellectual property, state secrets and other sensitive data from U.S. companies and government agencies are ratcheting up and government officials say the threat has become especially “persistent, pervasive, and insidious” in the last couple of years. Much of the threat is coming from China and other countries in East Asia, and officials say they expect economic espionage activity from that region to continue to focus on the theft of IT, aerospace and military technologies.

An August attack on the Saudi Arabian national oil company, Aramco, was reportedly launched in order to hinder oil production at the world’s most valuable company, according to a report published in the New York Times yesterday.

Hacktivist collective Team Ghostshell is claiming this morning to have spilled 1.6 million accounts from a handful of companies in the aerospace, nanotechnology, banking, law, education and government realm, a hack the group deems Project White Fox.The group claims White Fox is its “final stand” this year in a lengthy diatribe posted to  Pastebin. The post goes on about internet freedom, espionage and trolling before addressing the actual leak.