Yahoo Cyberattack Indictment Offers Clues Into Russian Election Hacking

The low-profile prosecution of a 22-year-old Canadian hacker may offer clues regarding how US intelligence officials learned about Russia’s efforts to disrupt last year’s election—and it could offer a lot more clues if the case goes to trial.

Last month in US District Court in San Francisco, Karim Baratov, a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, pleaded not guilty to multiple felonies related to his bit part in the cyberattack that compromised 500 million Yahoo accounts starting in 2014—and that nearly derailed Yahoo’s acquisition by Verizon. Of the four men indicted, Baratov is the only one in US custody. The others include an internationally wanted Latvian hacker and two members of a cyber unit within Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB for short). They are the first FSB operatives American authorities have charged in any hacking case.

Yahoo Parts Ways With ALEC

Another tech giant is parting ways with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Yahoo's withdrawal from the group was confirmed in a statement to Common Cause late Wednesday.

"We've decided to discontinue our membership in ALEC. We periodically review our membership in organizations and, at this time, we will no longer participate in the ALEC Task Force on Communications and Technology,” the company stated.

NSA Broke Into Yahoo, Google Data Centers: Report

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

A secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, indicates that NSA sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters. In the last 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent back more than 180 million new records — ranging from "metadata," which would indicate who sent or received emails and when, to content such as text, audio and video, the Post reported Wednesday on its website.

Yahoo CEO Mayer: we faced jail if we revealed NSA surveillance secrets

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook struck back on Wednesday at critics who have charged tech companies with doing too little to fight off NSA surveillance. Mayer said executives faced jail if they revealed government secrets.

Yahoo and Facebook, along with other tech firms, are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the spy agency. Companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data they provide.

Collusion and Collision in Internet Censorship

A new report targets the likes of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Skype, and Cisco for their role in aiding China's "Great Firewall."

In the pursuit of profits, principles often become collateral damage.

This is the dilemma U.S.-based internet companies operating in China struggle with. Economic opportunism, unchecked by moral and ethical concerns, incurs more than just bad publicity – it costs lives and personal freedom.

Western internet companies in China are navigating a precarious grey zone between collusion and collision, where compliance with domestic laws is often used to justify collaboration in China’s official censorship regime.

It is a reality that businesses must obey the rules and regulations of the country in which they operate. But at what point does industry have to take it upon itself to choose ethics over growth, and socio-political responsibilities over economic prosperity?