The NSA is constructing a datacenter in the Utah desert that they project will be storing yottabytes of surveillance data.

There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte, and a thousand zettabytes in a yottabyte. To wrap this up, a yottabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000GB.

Stored data is predicted to include among other things – tapped phone calls, intercepted emails and other communication medias of US and non US citizens / corporations.

Communicating confidential information using Gold Lock’s military grade encryption will guarantee to keep your calls outside this massive repository of intercepted communication.

News Reports have recently surfaced revealing that the National Security Agencies surveillance of American citizens may be wider ranging than previously thought. A recent announcement by Congress suggested that the top secret spy organization’s monitoring of domestic internet traffic has gone beyond legal limits.

This news comes as a result of leaked reports detailing the NSA’s potentially unconstitutional actions, after a whistleblower revealed that the NSA were training analysts to monitor large amounts of domestic email. These reports have raised new concerns about the National Security Agency and sparked an investigation by the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel.

In an age of increased domestic terrorism, it remains clear that authorities must be ever vigilant but many of these actions are flagrant and direct violations of the constitution. Much of this spying on American citizens has gone on without any form of court warrant, so technically it is illegal.

Because of the increase in domestic and international surveillance, the NSA has been targeting everyday communications that may or may not pertain to active terror investigations. This is in direct breach of the constitution and also countless privacy laws.

Given the difficulties exposed in identifying and separating domestic email foreign emails, laws were passed in order to ensure the protection of the National Security Agency. The NSA then exploited these laws to collect many millions of domestic e-mail records.

It would seem that everyday e-mail communications are no longer safe, and as a result even the average citizen should take precautions when sending sensitive information via email.

After these damning details were revealed, the National Security Agency refused to comment other than to provide a standard statement detailing that ‘technical errors can and do occur.’

Numerous examples of malicious software have been found on hundreds of ATM machines running Microsoft Windows.  This ‘software’ is apparently able to record card numbers and details that are contained in the magnetic strip on the back of cards.

Up until now, this exploit has only been found on ATM machines located in Eastern Europe, but it looks to be that the software is highly advanced, and before long it may make its way to the west.

This highly advanced exploit not only records card details, but it also gives full access to the ATM machine functions.  From printing money to rebooting the machine, criminals need only insert a special ‘card’ which allows them to literally do anything they want.

It would seem that the evolution of the ATM machine has ensured that it is now vulnerable to attack because of the developers desires for it to remain ‘user-friendly’.  But has user friendly gone one step too far in this case?  The vulnerable ATM machines all run a standard version of Windows XP which obviously, has major vulnerabilities.

It would seem that simply securing parts of a computer inside a steel cage is no longer enough to deter these attackers and they have found a way to load their sinister software without banks actually knowing.

Looking at this, one can only make the realistic conclusion that ATM machines are no longer simply ‘thin clients’.  It is ironic to see that banks are putting their trust in operating systems such as Windows XP straight out of the box.

Evidence supporting the security limitations of Windows XP has existed since before 2003.  Even the NSA admits that standard editions of XP are flawed and vulnerable.  As a result, USAF actually petitioned Microsoft for a locked-down and secure version of the operating system.  Why didn’t banks think of that?

In recent news, it has been brought to light that the US military and government are actively searching for experienced hackers and crackers to join the ranks of the Department of Energy, National Security Agency and other organizations that need to be ‘protected’ from the threat of digital attack.

To aid the US government in its search for young, prospective hackers, they have launched a series of three national level competitions known as the Cyber Challenge, which looks set to test children’s knowledge in regards to security penetration, digital forensics and cyber-espionage.  Those successful at the ‘Cyber Challenge’ will be invited to attend a joint private / military training camp during 2010 which looks set to develop the skills and recruit these youngsters into various agencies such as the NSA and the DOE as well as the armed forces.

This story demonstrates how scared government agencies are from the threat of digital assault.  As a result, they have started to recruit the ‘child prodigies’ which will help them develop next generation security and or espionage abilities.

Today we are living in a world in which it is impossible to live without an Internet connection, or some means to work remotely.  This is a risk every modern corporation faces, and obviously governments also.  What is disturbing is where the US government is looking for the next generation of cyber security analysts and what this actually means.  Effectively instead of looking at the upper echelons of academia for advice, the US government is resorting to recruiting children for their expertise, which is demonstrative of how many information security professionals have missed a whole generation of technology.

Security policy needs to evolve with the Internet and the technology that supports it.  Eighty percent of IT professionals are reliant on outdated technology and methodologies.  This is clearly the US government’s way to remedy this, by taking it to a grass-roots level.