Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts. Read more >>

Computer repair shops steal passwords, hack bank accounts

In economic depressions like the one we're experiencing, long-term unemployment and low trade and investment levels breed fear, desperation, and violence. Murder and suicide rates increase, as well as theft, robberies, and burglaries. Cities and states are bankrupt. Low-priority crimes like breaking and entering may not even get prosecuted in Detroit because of budget restraints.

An "Every Man For Himself" motto will increasingly become a tacitly agreed on rationale and serve as justification to screw your fellow man. As we near complete collapse, all third party contact will eventually become a potential security risk.

Sky News reports:

Computer repair shops are illegally accessing personal data on customers' hard drives - and even trying to hack their bank accounts, a Sky News investigation has found. In one case, passwords, log-in details and holiday photographs were all copied onto a portable memory stick by a technician.

...customers were charged for non-existent work and simple faults were misdiagnosed. Sky engineers...created a simple, easily diagnosable fault, by loosening the connection of the internal memory chip. This prevented Windows being able to load. To get things working again, the chip would simply need to be pushed back into position. The investigation targeted six different computer repair shops. All but one misdiagnosed or overcharged for the fault.

All but one.