Yahoo Mail Hacked

[yogi]

Do you have an e-mail account with Yahoo? It will need some attention because they have disabled your login credentials if you have not changed them since 2014. This hack involved over 500,000 leaked account credentials and is said to be the largest breach in history. Many folks don't care if their e-mail account gets hacked, but security experts point out your Yahoo e-mail security is not the issue. A lot of people use the same password across the Internet so that wherever you provided your Yahoo e-mail information is now vulnerable. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not only change your Yahoo account password but to also change the password on all those other website in which you used the same password.

https://thetechdiscovery.wordpress.com/ ... ts-swiped/

[Icey]

Thank you Yogi. It doesn't apply to us personally, but many people must've been left feeling vulnerable.

[pilvikki]

luckily I picked up a dislike for yahoo several years ago. can't remember why, but if I ever were tempted to go back, all I need to think is yahoo answers.

shudder.

mind you, google leaks like a sieve, too.

[Icey]

*Yahoo answers .....

You as well then? Glad I wasn't on my own!

[yogi]

The important point in this story is the emphasis on using unique passwords for all the websites you visit. If your password was created on Yahoo prior to 2014, and you have not changed it since, then the bad guys may have it. If you use that password elsewhere, then the bad guys can get into there too. The moral of the story is to not use that Yahoo password anywhere else on the web.

[Icey]

There've been a lot of warnings over here Yogi.

[yogi]

It was learned recently that Yahoo was requested by "the government" to spy on it's customers.

The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to a spy agency’s demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

We can only hope it was for good reason, but this clearly is groundbreaking in the world of privacy. Unlike the folks at Apple Computer, Marissa Mayer the head of Yahoo caved into the demand.

If any of you still maintain a Yahoo account of any kind, you have my condolences.
http://fortune.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-mai ... -software/

And the contrasting view from Apple is:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/ ... th-the-fbi

[Icey]

You're right Yogi, and it makes you wonder if other email accounts're safe. Tbh, I don't think anything online is, no matter how well encrypted.

Kim Kardashian's phone's been remotely wiped in its absence from its owner, and I've heard enough over the last few years to think that however useful and wonderful computers can be, there's nothing that's publicly 100% free from prying eyes unless you pay a lot of money to keep monitoring and upgrading the situation.

Of course, you're going to get those who say that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear, and I feel that a degree of surveillance's necessary to help prevent the work of criminals and terrorists, but at the same time, the art of being able to spy on anyone at any time has some dark connotations, from national safety to being able to blackmail, steal identities, target individuals or groups, sabotage businesses, etc., etc. With the advances in technology, it can create more problems than it can solve.

[pilvikki]

I've totally given up to any 'security' being an illusion. and no, there's nothing i'm hiding, yet know from personal experience how one's words can be twisted and misconstrued.

[yogi]

The issue here may not apply to Europe. Our constitution prohibits the kind of search and seizure that this story is all about. You need a warrant from a court in order to do it, and such warrants cover only a single or very few individuals. We are talking hundreds of millions of people being searched by Yahoo. Since some kind of counter terrorism might be involved, we don't really know how obligated Yahoo was to comply. Apple chose not to when asked by the FBI. Google, Twitter, and Microsoft said preemptively the would not comply with such an order. The concern here is that the government may have overstepped it's authority because many of the accounts involve American citizens. It's sketchy, but has the makings of a giant sized scandal.

[Icey]

I hope that the outcome isn't as awful as it somehow looks, but we read over here that 500 million Yahoo users might've been searched, or could be. It's a huge amount of people, and folk need to know why, and if or what information may've been kept on them.
In the UK, the police and intelligence services're allowed to hack into someone's account if they're under suspicion of crime - e.g. downloading or distributing child porn, inciting acts of terrorism and so on. In the normal way, ordinary computer users have nothing to fear, except ..... that if emails and online activity can be looked at for one, there's always the possibility of anyone and everyone else being subjected to the same scrutiny.

[yogi]

American citizens have a basic right to privacy and freedom from random search (and seizures) by the government. Police can't just come into your house and search it because they suspect you did something illegal (or don't like you for some other reason). Permission to conduct the search has to be granted by a court. It all has to do with the 4th amendment to our constitution.

Fast forward to 1978 when FISA was enacted:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" Pub.L. 95–511, 92 Stat. 1783, 50 U.S.C. ch. 36) is a United States federal law which prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers"

This is cool and most people do not see anything wrong with it, until one Mr E. Snowdon comes along and reveals that in the process of gathering intelligence about foreign powers, a lot of American citizens were also being spied upon (searched). This is likely to be the case with the Yahoo incident, but nobody knows the real motives behind the investigation. They don't have to publicize reasons when national security is at stake. Regardless, the 4th amendment still applies.

So, this is a very sticky point of law. The argument is that due to the ambiguities of this search, we don't know if some major diversion from the constitution has been forced into play by the government. Maintaining privacy is a big issue for mobile device manufacturers and browser makers so that they tend to get all upset when the government needs to do some serious intrusion. Nobody wants to set a precedent. But, on the surface, it looks like Yahoo caved into pressure and did something highly illegal. Their own security head resigned as a result of this decision by the CEO. This would all be just another hack if it were not for the fact that issues with the constitution are involved - or so they say. None of the common folks know for sure.

[Icey]

It's shocking, but do you think the truth'll come out?

[yogi]

I see the rules changing. Some of what was conceived 250 years ago is no longer valid or relevant in today's world. The US Constitution is meant to be a guideline more than a set of laws. But certain things are happening today for which there were no clear guidelines written. Couple that ambiguity with the facts of modern life and you end up with a story such as this one about Yahoo. I think our strength is in being diverse and adaptable. The wheels of progress move slowly, and at times we hear them grinding. Privacy is being redefined and the grumblings we read about will help determine what happens in the next generation. To answer your question, I don't think all the details of this incident will be made public if it truly was instigated by our intelligence gathering community. We may be able to make some educated guesses and there is no shortage of conspiracy theories. The truth is that life in this modern world is changing, and we have to keep up or perish.

[Icey]

Oh dear. That sounds drastic, but I understand what you're saying. It just went through my mind whether Yahoo security was hacked by foreign powers .... looking for something, for some reason ....