Trump denies collusion with Russia after firing Comey

The president of the United States denied on Thursday any collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia in his first interview since firing FBI chief James Comey, who was conducting an investigation into the matter.

"There was no collusion between my campaign and the Russians," Trump said in the interview with US network NBC.

The president said that investigating him and his campaign is a waste of public money, but also insisted that he wants the probe to be done "absolutely properly."

"I want that to be so strong and so good. And I want it to happen," added Trump, who said he also wanted to know if Russia did something to affect the campaign.

The interview came two days after the dismissal of Comey, who was investigating the alleged links between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign.

Trump called Comey "a showboat" and told NBC he believed the FBI had been out of control for some time.

He also claimed that Comey had personally assured him that he was not under investigation by the FBI.

"I said, 'If it's possible would you let me know, am I under investigation?'" Trump said, to which the former FBI director reportedly replied: "You are not under investigation."

Aside from the FBI, Congress is also investigating suspected Russian interference in the November election, including the alleged relationship between Russian officials and the president's campaign.

Source: EFE

Child sex abuse site operator jailed for 20 years

David Lynn Browning was the central controller of the Playpen site, which was hosted on the dark web.

Browning will also be subject to a life-time of supervision when he eventually leaves prison.

He is the second key Playpen operator to be jailed. In January another administrator received a similar sentence.

Browning was a senior member of the group that had operated Playpen, said the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in a statement.

Shut down

He had been responsible for the day-to-day running of the site, moderating discussions and managing membership lists.

The DoJ said the members-only website had been run via The Onion Router (Tor) anonymising network.

Tor bounces data requests through lots of different nodes, encrypting at every step to conceal who and where users are.

A long-running FBI operation led to Playpen being shut down in 2015.

Prior to it being closed, the FBI ran the site for two weeks, gathering data on its users.

Playpen is believed to have had about 150,000 members who shared tens of thousands of postings about the sexual abuse of children.

The DoJ said the FBI action had led to the arrest of 51 people connected to the site and to the rescue of 55 children who were being abused.

Browning's co-administrator Steven W Chase, from Florida, who was also arrested as a result of the FBI investigation, is expected to be sentenced soon.

Source: BBC

FBI descobre mais 15 mil documentos de Hillary Clinton

A  Polícia Federal dos Estados Unidos (FBI, sigla em inglês) descobriu quase 15 mil documentos não revelados vinculados ao escândalo dos e-mails da candidata democrata à presidência do país, Hillary Clinton, informaram nesta segunda-feira veículos de imprensa americanos.

Os documentos foram encontrados durante a investigação do FBI sobre o uso de um servidor de e-mail privado por Hillary quando ela ocupava o cargo de secretária de Estado, entre os anos de 2009 e 2013.

O número representa quase 50% dos 30 mil documentos relacionados com o assunto que os advogados de Hillary entregaram ao Departamento de Estado em 2014.

O próprio Departamento de Estado se comprometeu a publicar os documentos e assegurou hoje ao juiz federal James E. Boasberg que o órgão está "dando prioridade" à revisão das novas mensagens.

No entanto, ainda não se sabe se esses e-mails serão publicados antes das eleições, que acontecem no dia 8 de novembro, na qual a também ex-primeira-dama enfrentará seu rival republicano, Donald Trump, para chegar à presidência do país.

A polêmica pelos e-mails teve início em 2015, quando os veículos de imprensa americanos revelaram que, durante seus quatro anos no Departamento de Estado, Hillary usou durante o tempo todo uma conta particular para suas comunicações, com um servidor privado.

Hillary reconheceu então que teria sido "mais inteligente" usar uma conta oficial e entregou 55 mil páginas de e-mails de seu período como chefe do Departamento de Estado para que fossem divulgados, mas o caso gerou dúvidas sobre se Hillary tratou de maneira indevida informações sigilosas do governo ao usar sua conta pessoal.

O Departamento de Estado identificou cerca de 2.100 e-mails do servidor de Hillary com informação confidencial, mas assegurou que muitos deles não eram considerados classificados no momento de seu envio, mas foram rotulados como tal durante a revisão atual dos e-mails.

Além disso, o tema dos e-mails acentuou as acusações por parte da bancada republicana no Congresso sobre a má gestão da ex-secretária de Estado em relação ao ataque contra o consulado americano em Benghazi, na Líbia, em 2012, no qual morreram o então embaixador Chris Stevens e outros três funcionários do governo.

Hillary se submeteu há alguns meses a um comparecimento perante os legisladores que durou mais de 11 horas para explicar o ocorrido naquele ataque e, no início de julho, foi tornado público o relatório final dos congressistas sobre o atentado, no qual não foram encontradas provas contra a candidata democrata.

Além disso, o FBI recomendou em julho ao Departamento de Justiça que não indiciasse a candidata presidencial após finalizar suas investigações do caso dos e-mails, por isso a procuradora-geral, Loretta Lynch, seguiu suas diretrizes.

Fonte: EFE

US Supreme Court approves expanded hacking powers

Previously, magistrate judges could order searches only within the jurisdiction of their court, often limited to a few counties.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said the change was necessary to modernise the law for the digital age.

But digital rights groups say the move expands the FBI's hacking authority.

The DoJ wants judges to be able to issue remote search warrants for computers located anywhere that the United States claims jurisdiction, which could include other countries.

A remote search typically involves trying to access a suspect's computer over the internet to explore the data contained on it.

It has pushed for a change in the rules since 2013, arguing that criminals can mask their location and identity online making it difficult to determine which jurisdiction a computer is located in.

'Only mechanism available'

"Criminals now have ready access to sophisticated anonymising technologies to conceal their identity while they engage in crime over the internet," said DoJ spokesman Peter Carr.

"The use of remote searches is often the only mechanism available to law enforcement to identify and apprehend them.

"The amendment makes explicit that it does not change the traditional rules governing probable cause and notice."

It said the change would not give law enforcement any new authority not already permitted by law.

However, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have warned that the change could expand the FBI's ability to conduct mass hacks on computer networks.

'Thousands of millions of computers'

"Such a monumental change in the law should not be snuck by Congress under the guise of a procedural rule," said Neema Singh Guliani of the ACLU.

In 2015, search giant Google also opposed the change, which, it said, "threatens to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of internet users".

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said the change had "significant consequences for Americans' privacy", and said he would seek to reverse the decision.

"Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime," he said in a statement.

Congress can still opt to reject or modify the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure - but if it does not act by 1 December the change will take effect.

Source: BBC

John McAfee offers to unlock killer's iPhone for FBI

Anti-virus software creator John McAfee has said he will break the encryption on an iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino killer Syed Farook.

Mr McAfee made the offer to the FBI in an article published by Business Insider.

Apple has refused to comply with a court order asking it to unlock the device, dividing opinion over whether the firm should be compelled to do so.

Mr McAfee said he and his team would take on the task "free of charge".

The offer came as Mr McAfee continues his campaign as a US presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.

"It will take us three weeks," he claimed in his article.

Security expert Graham Cluley told the BBC he was sceptical of Mr McAfee's claims.
"The iPhone is notoriously difficult to hack compared to other devices," he said.

'Dead men's tales'

For instance, Mr Cluley cast doubts on Mr McAfee's idea that he could use "social engineering" to work out the pass-code of Farook's locked iPhone.

This is a process by which hackers try to find out login credentials by tricking people into giving them away.
"In a nutshell, dead men tell no tales," said Mr Cluley. "Good luck to Mr McAfee trying to socially engineer a corpse into revealing its pass-code."
"The FBI isn't interested anyway, they want to set a precedent that there shouldn't be locks they can't break," he added.

In his article, Mr McAfee stated that he was keen to unlock the device because he didn't want Apple to be forced to implement a "back door" - a method by which security services could access data on encrypted devices.

Chief executive of Apple Tim Cook had previously said in a statement that the firm did not want to co-operate.

He argued that introducing a back door would make all iPhones vulnerable to hacking by criminals.
'I would eat shoe'

Mr McAfee believes that it would be possible to retrieve data from the phone by other means - though he did not give many details of how it would be done.

"I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto [television] show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone," he added.

Some, including the Australian Children's eSafety Commissioner who spoke to tech website ZDNet, have said that Apple would not necessarily have to introduce a back door, but that the firm is only being asked to provide access to a single device.

Tech firms' support

Other tech firms have rallied behind Apple's following a few days of debate over how it should respond to the FBI's request.

Google boss Sundar Pichai had already expressed his support for Mr Cook and yesterday chief executive of Twitter Jack Dorsey added his approval via a tweet.

In a statement, Facebook said it condemned terrorism and had solidarity with the victims of terror, but would continue its policy of opposing requests to diminish security.

"We will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems," it said.

"These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products."

Source:BBC