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agencies, lack of transparency from

By Sarah Kim
corporations weaken privacy
The leakage of more than 400 nude photos on Aug.
31 of over 101 celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence,
Kate Upton and Lea Michele, attracted controversy and
varied reactions from civilians and celebrities alike. While
material that featured naked celebrities, the magnitude of
the hacking was unprecedented. As a result of this leak,
increased attention was drawn to the growing trend in
cyber-abuse that has been facilitated by agency activity
and a lack of transparency from corporations.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., acknowledged that
while poor security was not necessarily the cause of the
leak, his company could have taken more initiative to inform users of the danger hackers pose to their privacy.
Often, cloud services like iCloud are enabled by default,
meaning that these nude photos may have been uploaded to the cloud service without the celebrities knowlalso do not guarantee full protection against hackers.
It is unfair to blame the celebrities for taking nude
photos, Sungwoo Yang (11) said. I believe that most
of the responsibility lies with the hackers, and that Apple should take part of the blame as well for not doing
enough to make the cloud services secure. These celebrities were not aware of how vulnerable they were. Withthese celebrities were.
Some of the most well-equipped procurers of private
material are prominent intelligence agencies that justify
their access to personal information as a means of detecting terrorists and other criminals. With the magnitude
of its surveillance, the National Security Agency (NSA), in
whistleblower Edward Snowdens words, seeks to make
privacy a thing of the past.
One of the things Snowden revealed was that the NSA

can turn on your Macbook camera, said Peter Beckway,

English teacher. Once, when I was living in Saudi Arabia, I was sitting on my couch and watching TV when
suddenly I noticed that my Macbook camera was on. I
freaked out, and just shut down my laptop.
Some members of the NSA are not only interested in
combating terrorism and crime. Having access to such
a large amount of personal data provides the association with a plethora of personal nude photos and videos
that get caught in its surveillance systems. According to
Snowden, some members of the NSA share nude photos
for their own personal enjoyment.
The large databases that we have can literally suck
up the entire Internet, and communication [between] all
kinds of people all around the world, Mr. Beckway said.
all that data, but when the volume of data is that big,
youre actually going to end up missing important information. Its counterintuitive.
between 2008 and 2010 belonging to the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Besides manipulating online polls and debates, and tracking people
by impersonating spammers, the GCHQ, with the aid of
the NSA, intercepted and stored the webcam images of
millions of Yahoo users. Approximately 180,000 of these
images featured nudity.
democracy if the government can just go around and ignore our basic rights? said Ruth Poulsen, English teacher. Why should agencies like the NSA have to secretly
go around laws to get masses of information from people who arent even suspects? [These agencies] have to
have some accountability.

HOW ARE THEY

WATCHING YOU?
Here are some of the most common ways hackers
monitor your online activities.

GRAPHIC by: yeena yoon

Source: infoworld

Flash Cookies Theft

By stealing user cookies, hackers receive access to private ID

and passwords, allowing them to disguise as legitimate use

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Government digital surveillance stirs

BY Claire Kim
controversy among public
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. This
seems to be the position of the US government regarding
digital surveillance. With this mentality, the government,
since 2001, has enacted several laws such as the Patriot
Act of 2001 and the Government Surveillance Transparency
Act of 2013, which allow increasingly pervasive programs
to monitor the lives of citizens. The disclosure of this information sparked global controversy, and the public began to
look more closely into the ways the government was keeping track of their lives.
Government surveillance remains a polemical issue
among digital citizens around the world. In the past decade,
many governments have passed legislation enabling more
surveillance programs. Such laws have given the American
government unprecedented power, as legislation has reduced regulations that previously checked for the possibility of power abuse by the government. Compared to older
in order to gather information about foreign suspects, current legislation does not necessitate such warrants.
As the Constitution stands right now, [government digital surveillance] is not a right of the government, said Alex
Barton-Lopez, social studies teacher. The social contract
[the American government] entered into did not suggest
that the government had that right.
The earliest account of such modern surveillance was the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which allowed
the government to wiretap the communications of foreign
intelligence targets. Because warrants were required for
nated with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISC). In 2008, under Barack Obamas presidency, FISA
was amended to allow the government to keep track of the
communications of American nationals as well, as opposed
to only international suspects. This expansion in the FISA

Fake Wireless Access Points (WAP)

Lure in public users by setting up fake WAPs, which are
supposed to supply wireless connection. Obtained log-on
credentials used on popular websites to hack accounts.

act enraged American citizens, as many citizens viewed

this action as an overreach of government power.
between the government and the citizens, said Jennifer
Kim (10), AP US History student. A capable government
should be able to carry out all of its security missions and
operations without harming the rights of its citizens. It is
unacceptable that governments be given the right to be
Big Brother, [a totalitarian government form presented in
George Orwells novel 1984], to its citizens.
Currently, the most controversial surveillance program
is PRISM, launched by the NSA in coordination with its
Britain equivalent, the Government Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ), under the Protect America Act of
the Bush Administration. This ongoing program allows
the government to use upstream collection, which requires large Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo to turn over large portions of data to the government
government hacked into numerous Internet companies
data storage systems to acquire the information illegally.
When the BBC reported last year of this hack, many citizens were infuriated, as they saw this event as a breach
of corporations rights. Causing further outrage, it was
the NSA and PRISM partners in the millions of dollars.
This also caused many citizens to doubt whether there
was an ulterior, monetary motive to legalizing the program.
formation collection and citizens rights, Nicholas Kim
(9) said. They need to have certain safeguards, like court
approval processes, in order to make the system fair.
Without these measures, information collection is merely
an abuse of government power.

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