Microsoft Corp on Tuesday said it is scrambling Outlook e-mail messages in transit to thwart spying by governments or others.
Toughened encryption at Outlook and Microsoft OneDrive online “cloud” data storage service came less than a month after the technology titan got low marks in a Google Inc ranking of such defenses against online snooping.
“We are in the midst of a comprehensive engineering effort to strengthen encryption across our networks and services,” Microsoft vice president of trustworthy computing security Matt Thomlinson said in a blog post.
“This effort also helps us reinforce that governments use appropriate legal processes, not technical brute force, if they want access to that data,” he said.
US Internet firms are eager to fend off privacy concerns provoked by US online spying tactics exposed by former intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia.
Microsoft also announced the opening of a transparency center at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters where governments can check the integrity of its software.
Google last month stepped up its effort to make it tougher for spies or anyone else to snoop on e-mail, unveiling Chrome browser software for scrambling digital messages.
A test version of a software tool called “End-to-End” was released so Internet engineers can dabble with making mini-programs that plug into Chrome browser and encrypt Gmail messages in ways that shield them from eyes of everyone except senders and recipients.
In a move that put pressure other services, Google broke down how much message traffic received from them was encrypted.
Meanwhile, a privacy watchdog panel said on Tuesday that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) vast data collection program targeting foreign nationals is a largely legal, valuable tool in fighting terrorism.
The panel, which earlier this year issued a sharp rebuke of domestic surveillance efforts, said in a preliminary report that the foreign intelligence efforts are generally in line with the US constitution, while raising some concerns about unintentional data gathering of Americans.
“The program has proven valuable in the government’s efforts to combat terrorism as well as in other areas of foreign intelligence,” said the report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a panel created on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
The panel was largely supportive of the NSA’s handling of the programs authorized by Section 702 or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — the opposite of its conclusion in January of the huge telephone metadata collection effort by the intelligence agency.
“Presently, over a quarter of the NSA’s reports concerning international terrorism include information based in whole or in part on Section 702 collection, and this percentage has increased every year since the statute was enacted,” the report said.
This effort “has enabled the government to learn how they operate, and to understand their priorities, strategies, and tactics. In addition, the program has led the government to identify previously unknown individuals who are involved in international terrorism, and it has played a key role in discovering and disrupting specific terrorist plots aimed at the United States and other countries,” the report added.
However, the panel said that some aspects of the Section 702 program are “close to the line of constitutional reasonableness,” notably the incidental collection of communications of Americans and a broad interpretation of Internet data that may be searched.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”