By Lewis Carter The internet could soon be made obsolete by a new "grid" system which is 10,000 times faster than broadband connections. Web could collapse as video demand soars Scientists in Switzerland have developed a lightning-fast replacement to the internet that would allow feature films and music catalogues to be downloaded within seconds. The invention could signal the end of the dreaded ...

Ron Paul Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens. Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of immunity to telecommunications companies, there is much more to be wary of in the bill. ...

Plans for the Department of Homeland Security to launch a new satellite surveillance system is coming under new criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, Secretary Michael Chertoff said the satellite surveillance system would be soon ready to go. But now the Wall Street Journal reports Democrats are threatening to shut down the program unless the department does more to address privacy concerns. The satellite program is designed to provide ...

By Clive Thompson Wired Trolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice. "Who's there? Who's there?" she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull. Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. It broadcasts audio in a focused beam, so that only a ...

A DNA police technique used to hunt down a rapist is being lauded in the United States as an example of pioneering detective work. Avon and Somerset Police's first success using familial DNA searches to crack unsolved cases could now be adopted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In October 2007, 42-year-old Bridgwater man Geoffrey Godfrey was jailed for raping a 36-year-old woman in April 1993. The success of the force's ...

Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation. Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation. The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, ...

US intelligence agencies are using Google's technology to help its agents share information about their suspects Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects. Agencies such as the National Security Agency have bought servers on which Google-supplied search technology is used to process information gathered by networks of spies around the world. Google is also providing the search ...

A promise by the biggest broadband provider in the US that it would stop discriminating against users who swap music and video online has failed to quell a grassroots movement demanding legislation to protect equal access to the internet. Comcast, led by chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts, said it would stop interfering with the popular BitTorrent programs used for file sharing, ending a covert practice that was exposed last year ...

A brain imaging technique called fMRI may be being used as a "lie detector" by US intelligence agencies, despite concerns over unreliability and the possibility of abuse, a leading academic has claimed. Professor Jonathan Marks, a bioethicist at Pennsylvania State University in the US and a lawyer at London's Matrix Chambers, says in an article in the American Journal of Law and Medicine that he believes that the use of ...

Heiss - A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations ...

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them. Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and ...

Failed machines same as those to be used in Pennslvania tally BRAD BLOG Sequoia Voting Systems' legal threats against Princeton computer science professors and New Jersey election officials have apparently had their intended effect. The strong-arm email sent to professors Ed Felten and Andrew Appel was apparently accompanied by a two-page letter to Union County, New Jersey, Clerk Joanne Rajoppi, who originally discovered a tally failure ...

Among certain circles, including the American Psychological Association, we need more research on effective interrogation strategies. Many of us have been suspicious that these calls may cover the design of technologies that will create high-tech tools aiding abusive interrogations. In 2003, the APA sponsored, with the CIA and Rand Corp., a Science of Deception Workshop. CIA contractor torturers James Michell and Bruce Jessen were ...

It's probably no surprise, but the government's horrendous record with data security has destroyed the public's trust. Only one of every ten people trust the government to handle their personal data, according to new research released today. The DES survey also showed 93 per cent of people who were against or not sure about identity cards said that this was because the government had a poor track record on protecting ...

The growing use of biometrics to identify individuals is "insecure and in need of immediate attention," according to an IT systems company. Fujitsu Siemens said biometrics is increasingly being used in the business world to verify whether individuals really are who they say. By 2013, Fujitsu Siemens predicts biometric identity technology will be so widespread in the private sector that the number of people included would rival that of the proposed ...