Intelligence

UK-backed covert influence network apparently planned to use its connections to ensure Hollywood and foreign-language films put out a pro-Western message and sought to influence awards like the Oscars and Baftas, show leaked docs.

Knowledgeable, well-funded hackers can install indistinguishable backdoors in 1,024-bit cryptographic keys – widely-used among top HTTPS-protected websites – using a special technique that can eventually decrypt protected communications, researchers reported.

Jeremy Hammond, who is in prison for hacking servers of the private intelligence company Statfor and leaking its information to WikiLeaks, has been held in solitary confinement for more than six weeks and will stay there pending a prison investigation.

The US military will increase the number of drone flights from the current 61 a day to as many as 90 by 2019 while expanding lethal strike capabilities.

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence wants to make it easier for private, “uncleared” companies, which don’t usually aid the intelligence community (such as ridesharing company Uber) to contribute to next generation surveillance needs.

Russia has issued a scathing attack on Westminster for attempting to “wreck the international order” by quietly expelling four Russian diplomats from the UK following a subtle shift in the government’s visa policy.

Google-backed medical research company Calico will partner with Ancestry.com to identify genetic patterns of anonymous people who have lived long lives with the aim of producing drugs to encourage those traits.

A father-of-two from Liverpool ordered enough ricin to poison 1,400 people, the Old Bailey has heard. The man had sought to buy the Breaking Bad-style chemical weapon online from an undercover FBI operative.

Scotland Yard used anti-terror legislation to violate the human rights of three British reporters in 2012 by accessing their private phone records, a court heard on Monday.