ISPs Take Legal Action Against British Spy Agency - GCHQ for 'Attacking International Infrastructure'

A coalition of international internet service providers (ISPs) and European hackers have filed a legal complaint against GCHQ for their “attacking and exploitation of network infrastructure”.

The complaint, lodged with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, claims that the British spy agency’s actions are “not only illegal, but are destructive [and] undermine the goodwill the organisations rely on.”
The complaint has been filed by Riseup (US), GreenNet (UK), Greenhost (Netherlands), Mango (Zimbabwe), Jinbonet (Korea), May First/People Link (US), the Chaos Computer Club (Europe’s largest association of hackers) and Privacy International.

Citing a number of articles from Der Spiegel and the Intercept, the companies accuse GCHQ of a number of damaging activites, including:
Targeting employees of Belgian telecommunications company Belgacom with malware through a highly developed attack named “Quantum Insert”
Using a number of “man on the side” attacks in collaboration with GCHQ to covertly inject data into existing connections to infect users
Creating an automated system named Turbine to control “millions of implants” by groups instead of as individuals Targeting three German internet exchange points with the NSA to spy on “all internet traffic coming through the nodes, and identify ‘important’ customers”
While the claimants were not named as direct targets in the Snowden leaks, they claim that “given the interconnectedness of the internet, the surveillance being carried out by GCHQ and NSA detailed in the articles could be carried out against any internet and communications providers."

Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, said: "These widespread attacks on providers and collectives undermine the trust we all place on the internet and greatly endangers the world's most powerful tool for democracy and free expression."
Privacy International has previously filed two other cases against GCHQ, with the most recent forcing the government to issue a 48-page statement defending its mass surveillance practices.

The Independent

How to Keep Your Neighbors From Hijacking Your Wi-Fi

Written By Lincoln Spector, csoonline

Your Internet connection could be slow for many reasons, but you can rule out local Wi-Fi thieves by employing strong passwords.

Rose's Internet service intermittently slows to a crawl. She wants to make sure that her neighbors haven't hacked her Wi-Fi for free connectivity.

A number of issues can produce intermittently slow Internet access, and most of them don't involve foul play. You could have bad cables, a bad modem or router, or simply outdated firmware on either of these devices. The problem may be with your ISP, and therefore completely out of your hands.

I'm assuming you've password-protected your Wi-Fi network. If you haven't, check your router's documentation and do so immediately.

But nothing is ever completely secure, and Wi-Fi networks can be cracked. You need to take extra precautions.

Every technique I've seen for cracking Wi-Fi networks involves either a dictionary or a brute-force attack. There's a very simple tool for protecting yourself against these attacks: a strong password. Use a long, random string of numbers, upper- and lower-case letters, and punctuation, and avoid anything found in the dictionary.

Since you and other people will likely be typing this password manually from time to time, avoid lower-case L, upper-case I and O, and the digits 1 and 0. This will avoid confusion when people read the password and recreate it on a keyboard.

Test the password's strength with How Secure is My Password, which estimates how long it would take a standard PC to crack your password. If it would take more than a million years to crack, consider the password safe.

The usual complaint against strong passwords--they're too hard to remember and type--doesn't apply here. You only have to type this password when setting up a new Wi-Fi-capable device, or when helping a guest who brought their own device to your home. You can just keep the password on a scrap of paper--or in your password manager.

Of course, if you're worried that a neighbor has already cracked your Wi-Fi, changing the password will get them off of it immediately.

In addition to your password, make sure your Wi-Fi security is properly set up. Go into your router's setting screen and check the options. Ideally, you should be using WPA2 encryption.A . If your modem doesn't support WPA2, use WPA-Personal--or better yet, buy a new router.