Neowin News Feed for: Spy

EFF sounds the alarm on Chat Control, a regulation allowing scanning of private messages

Usama Jawad — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 20:16:01 +0000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has criticized Europe's Chat Control regulation, which potentially allows governments to spy on phones. Read more...

The US government reportedly asked TikTok for unprecedented spying powers to avoid a ban

Mehrotra A — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:30:01 +0000

The US government proposed a contract with ByteDance last year that gave the government unprecedented powers over the app and the content in exchange for the app to continue in the country. Read more...

Editorial: Amazon didn't buy iRobot to spy on you or learn where your couch is

Christopher White — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:16:01 +0000

Amazon purchasing Roomba maker iRobot has led to rampant accusations of the company wanting to spy inside your house. Nobody has any proof, but there are a lot of arguments against this assumption. Read more...

Spyware app reportedly leaks millions of its own customers' sensitive records online [Update]

Hamza Jawad — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 12:32:01 +0000

mSpy, makers of a phone monitoring app, have leaked private information of millions of its paying customers in an online database. This isn't the first time mSpy has been involved in such a situation. Read more...

Mother discovers her daughter's bedroom cameras were hacked and livestreamed

Justin Luna — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 12:28:01 +0000

A mother in Houston recently found that the security camera in her daughter's bedroom was being publicly broadcasted. She learned that a video game server helped the hackers access the system. Read more...

GCHQ open sources 'Gaffer' in possible community relations bid

Paul Hill — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 03:58:01 +0000

GCHQ has released one of its projects on Github in a bid to improve community relations and entice developers into getting involved with the agency and possibly joining it. Read more...

US gov creates spyware that invades the firmware of HDDs

Jerry Grey — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 09:40:01 +0000

The US National Security Agency has been caught eavesdropping again using the firmware of hard drives to host its own spyware, according to the Russian computer security firm, Kaspersky Lab. Read more...

NSA leak shows how agency hijacks botnets, malware and other spies to do their dirty work

Vlad Dudau — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:01 +0000

New leaked documents show how the NSA is able to use botnets, malware and even other countries' spy systems to gather data and spread their own programs to new targets. Read more...

A creepy website is streaming from 73,000 cameras; some in the bedroom

Usama Jawad — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 11:16:01 +0000

A strange website is letting anyone stream from private IP cameras due to a security flaw. It is unclear what the motive of the website is, but the website is clearly doing more harm than good. Read more...

NSA intercepting PC shipments to install spyware

John Callaham — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 19:30:52 +0000

A new report claims that the National Security Agency has intercepted PCs from targeted individuals or groups and installed malware or even spy hardware inside the computers. Read more...

NSA uses Google's PREF and other commercial tracking cookies to spy on folks

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 10:34:59 +0000

The NSA has taken after companies that use cookies for commercial tracking, the best known of which is Google. The agency has used these same cookies to track and infect suspects' devices. Read more...

German Internet activists' furor over a possible “serious breach of privacy”

Phi Ha — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 12:54:34 +0000

Thousands of demonstrators take to the streets of Germany after fears that it may become another "surveillance nation". German Chancellor Angela Merkel denied any involvement with the NSA. Read more...

Judge orders the FBI to come clean on internet surveillance

Tyler Holman — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:43:13 +0000

A US District Judge has ordered the FBI to come clean on their efforts to access encrypted information and force manufacturers to build backdoors into their products, following a lawsuit from the EFF. Read more...

The UK wants ISPs to store all of their traffic data

Tyler Holman — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 04:16:57 +0000

What if every website you loaded, movie you streamed, song you pirated, and email you sent was decrypted and stored for a year by your ISP? Scary? It's exactly what the UK is hoping to do. Read more...

Tiny spy computer funded by DARPA, called F-BOMB

Christopher White — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:43:52 +0000

A small company called Malice Afterthought, received a DARPA grant and came up with a tiny spy computer using off-the-shelf parts that cost only $50. Read more...

Former FBI agent says agency routinely spies on citizens

Brandon Boyce — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:36:11 +0000

NetworkWorld had a chance to sit down and interview Mike German, 16-year veteran of the FBI who is now the ALCU's Policy Counsel on National Security, Immigration and Privacy. It was very eye opening to... Read more...

Feds not charging Philadelphia school employees in laptop spying case

Brandon Boyce — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:07:31 +0000

Federal prosecutors have decided not to charge employees of the suburban Philadelphia school district who took thousands of webcam photos from laptops issued to students. "We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a... Read more...

Microsoft says 12th alleged Russian spy was employee in Redmond

Andrew Lyle — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:33:24 +0000

Microsoft said that an alleged Russian spy was an employee at their headquarters in Redmond. According to businessweek, the Russian spy was a software tester for Microsoft, who was part of a spy ring sending... Read more...

Revealed: How schools use laptop webcams to spy on students [Video]

Tom Warren — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:21:00 +0000

Last week Neowin reported on a shocking case at the Lower Merion High School district in Pennsylvania, U.S. The FBI confirmed later that they will be opening up a criminal investigation over the matter. Students issued... Read more...

UK to invest in massive 'spy' database

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:29:31 +0000

Something you would have thought would only be part of action movies may be a reality soon in the UK. The government has plans to create a massive database that will store all... Read more...