Julian Assange faces arrest in Australia over unredacted WikiLeaks cables

guardian.co.uk



Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week.

WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website's original media partners.

Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland, confirmed in a statement on Friday that the new cable release identified at least one individual within the country's intelligence service. He added it is a criminal offence in the country to publish any information which could lead to the identification of an intelligence officer.

"I am aware of at least one cable in which an ASIO officer is purported to have been identified," he said. "ASIO and other Government agencies officers are working through the material to see the extent of the impact on Australian interests.

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HTC Sneaks Spying App into Android 2.3.4 Phones

hothardware.com

Looks like HTC has quietly slipped its users a spying app that tracks an alarming amount of user behavior and sends that data off to itself and perhaps others via a mysterious service in the cloud. The snooping app came nestled with the 2.3.4 Android update pushed out to some of its smartphones such as the Sensation 4G and EVO 4G.

TrevE and Team Synergy of the InfectedROM site (and XDA fame), discovered the app. HTC includes an application called Carrier IQ and Carrier IQ recently added a user-behavior logging feature called IQ Insight Experience Manager.

According to the Carrier IQ website: "IQ Insight Experience Manager uses data directly from the mobile phone itself to give a precise view of how users interact with both their phones and the services delivered through them, even if the phone is not communicating with the network. ... Identify exactly how your customers interact with services and which ones they use. See which content they consume, even offline."

But wait there's more. Turns out that after HTC collects these stats, CIQ isn't the only app with access to them.



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Expert says UK government is too preoccupied with launching cyber attacks

computing.co.uk

A security expert has claimed that the UK is devoting most of its cyber crime fighting efforts to cyber attack, leaving limited resources for defence.

Speaking exclusively to Computing, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the Cambridge University computer laboratory, stated that 90 per cent of the government's recent funding injection into cyber security was going to the UK's offensive capability.

"The spooks - GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, pictured] - are getting 90 per cent of this new £650m for cyber security [they are responsible for cyber attacks]. The rest, about £65m, is going to the police."

Anderson blamed the imbalance on the fact that the UK's cyber defence capabilities are organisationally placed within GCHQ, the body responsible for electronic espionage, or cyber attack.

"Like the US, the UK has unfortunately got the government's offensive and defensive arms linked together.

"CESG [Communications-Electronic Security Group], which is supposedly defending the core functions of government against for example cyber espionage by the Chinese, is a small subsidiary of GCHQ whose job is exploiting those sources abroad.

"This mixed mission is very bad policy, because it means defensive interests are always less important than an offensive approach."

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